iOS

Finical lets iPhone users dismiss a lingering or unwanted Now Playing widget

iOS’ Now Playing widget manifests itself on the Lock Screen any time there’s music playing when your iPhone is locked. The Now Playing widget can be useful at times, but as a number of users have pointed out over the years, it has a tendency to linger even after you’ve stopped listening to music.

While most would write this off as some sort of quirk and go about their busy lives, some tend to be a bit more disturbed by this apparent flaw. Fortunately, a newly released jailbreak tweak called Finical by iOS developer FivePixels offers a simple solution: merely swipe the Now Playing widget out of the way whenever you don’t feel like looking at it.

Modern Battery upgrades the Status Bar battery indicator on notched iPhones

Lots of iPhone users aren’t happy with the fact that you can’t have a numeric battery percentage in the Status Bar on a notched handset, and you could count me in that camp. As someone to consistently enabled this feature on the older and more traditional iPhones all the time, it felt like culture shock adapting to a user experience without it.

Fortunately, a newly released and free jailbreak tweak called Modern Battery by iOS developer Jax Roth can help in this department, as it can put a numeric battery percentage indicator directly inside of the native Status Bar battery icon.

GreenPotion adds a quirky potion-style battery animation to the Lock Screen

Battery information is a bigger deal to some than others, but if you wish battery monitoring could be a bit more fun than it is out of the box on a stock iPhone or iPad, then we think you’re doing to love a newly released jailbreak tweak dubbed GreenPotion by iOS developer Plat-Ykor.

The name “GreenPotion” is a dead giveaway in terms of what you can expect this tweak to do. Once you install it, you can tap on a new button situated between the Lock Screen’s Camera and Flashlight shortcut buttons to invoke a potion-like animation that displays real-time battery information, as shown in the screenshot examples above.

Weather Plus adds dates to the stock Weather app’s forecasts

It’s not uncommon for folks to make plans around the weather; this is especially the case when said plans involve outdoor activities. That said, wouldn’t it be more convenient if Apple’s stock Weather app made it just a little bit easier to see the upcoming dates next to each day in the weather forecast?

If you answered yes, then we have no doubt in our minds that a newly released and free jailbreak tweak called Weather Plus by iOS developer Hao Nguyen will appeal to you.

Arise lets jailbreakers customize and automate the Lock Screen

The iPhone’s Lock Screen is a straightforward interface that acts as a gateway between the user and the Home Screen or last-used interface. While it does its job, many would likely agree that it could do with improvements — some major and some minor.

Enter Arise, a newly released jailbreak tweak by iOS developer EthanDoesMC that aims to make any jailbroken iPhone’s Lock Screen more lively with exiting and obvious features that will make you question Apple’s own innovation.

Sam Bingner teases Cydia on iOS 14

Apple officially unveiled iOS and iPadOS 14 for the first time on Monday as a part of its WWDC 2020 Keynote, and just this morning, checkra1n team co-developer Dany Lisiansky teased a screenshot of the checkra1n jailbreak working on an iPhone running iOS 14. If the words “that was fast” uttered from your mouth upon seeing this, then you’re not alone.

Lisiansky admitted that there was still a lot more work that needed to be completed before checkra1n could be deemed iOS 14-compatible, but as you might come to expect, things are progressing rather quickly thanks to the unique talent encompassed within the checkra1n team. Just this evening, checkra1n team co-developer Sam Bingner teased a screenshot of the Cydia package manager operating on an iPhone X running iOS 14: