If you’ve ever used a Mac before, then you already know about the Stickies app that comes pre-installed by Apple from the factory. This app lets you jot down lists or thoughts directly on your desktop for easy reference later on, and it got some of us thinking… why doesn’t iOS have a feature like this?
Well now it does, and it’s all thanks to a newly released and free jailbreak tweak dubbed StickyNote by iOS developer Gabriel Siu.
If you use your iPhone’s alarm feature to wake up in time for class or work every morning, then you know just how easy it can be to dismiss the alarm and oversleep. Apple doesn’t seem to have any plans for making this feature more fool-proof in the future, and that’s why we’re turning our attention to a newly released and free jailbreak tweak called You Up? by iOS developer 1di4r.
In a nutshell, You Up? forces the user to solve math problems to turn their firing alarm off. The concept should sound familiar because there’ve been literally countless tweak releases in the past that could do the same thing. What You Up? brings to the table is an aesthetically pleasing interface paired with the fact that the tweak is fully open-source on the developer’s GitHub page.
Whether you jailbreak to make your iOS handset look cooler, or you do it to add new features that Apple won’t provide out of the box, there’s no reason you can’t use a pick-me-up.
This roundup will showcase all the latest jailbreak tweak releases from Monday, May 4th to Sunday, May 10th. As usual, we’ll kick things off by talking about our favorite releases first and then wrap things up with an outline of the rest afterward.
Apple’s Safari web browser is perhaps one of the best ways to explore the internet on your iPhone or iPad, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. In fact, we can think of a number of ways that it could be improved, such as importing many of the iPad’s web browsing features to the smaller iPhone.
But whether you’re looking for functionality upgrades or the ability to theme your Safari web browser from top to bottom, we’ve got a gut feeling that a newly released jailbreak tweak called Safari Electro 2 by iOS developer Minazuki could be right up your alley.
Apple designed iOS to display a Now Playing widget on your Lock screen whenever you listen to music. Its sole purpose is to make your music controls easier to access in a pinch, but some might argue that Apple make it a bit more complicated than it needed to be, especially if you don’t need all the added bells and whistles of AirPlay, progress bars, and volume scrubbers.
If you align yourself with the aforementioned group of people who find the Now Playing widget just slightly overdone, then you’ll probably enjoy the likes of a newly released and free jailbreak tweak dubbed Vinyl by iOS developer Lightmann, as it takes a more simplistic approach to providing you with music controls on your Lock screen.
There’ve been literally so many different jailbreak tweaks made available for customizing the iOS power down menu that we can hardly even keep count of them all anymore. That aside, we still like to showcase those that we think look promising, and a new release called Omega by iOS developer JakeSnake certainly appears to fit the bill.
In the screenshot examples above, you’ll notice that Omega provides users with several different power down interfaces to choose from. Furthermore, if the basic iOS power down menu just doesn’t cut it for you, especially since jailbreakers hardly ever turn their device(s) off, then perhaps you’ll enjoy the tweak’s suite of alternative booting controls instead.
The majority of people seem to respond positively to audio visualizers, and while it’s a shame that Apple doesn’t provide one for iOS out of the box, jailbreak tweaks like Mitsuha Infinity (or the newer Mitsuha Forever) can bring this feature to pwned handsets that are no longer under the tech giant’s sole control.
But say you don’t like Mitsuha’s Siri-like waveform visualizer; what other options do you have? We’re glad you asked, because a newly released jailbreak tweak dubbed Circuliser by iOS developer squ1dd13 offers a circular audio visualizer alternative that some users may find a bit more aesthetically pleasing.
Just a couple of days ago, we showed you a snazzy new jailbreak tweak called Color My Scrolls that could be used to colorize your iOS device’s scrollbars. We liked the concept because it was a simple way to add personality to your device, but at the same time, it came with a price tag and was somewhat limited in terms of features.
Given the aforementioned circumstances, we’re excited to showcase a newly released and free jailbreak tweak called ColoredScrollIndicator by iOS developer LacertosusDeus. In case the context clues haven’t given it away already, this tweak is effectively a free alternative to Color My Scrolls that offers a lot more by way of customization. For that reason alone, we think it might be worth checking out.
If there’s one thing I like about how iOS has changed over the years, it would have to be the introduction of widgets via the Today page. Available via the Lock screen, Notification Center, and to the left of the first Home screen page, the Today page offers a quick and unmistakable glance at pertinent app data from widget-supported apps. But what if you wanted to access your widgets from more places?
Unfortunately, Apple keeps widget access locked down to a very small number of places in iOS, but with the help of a newly released and free jailbreak tweak dubbed ControlWidget by iOS developer Marcel Braun, you can now enjoy a Today widget of your choosing in the Control Center interface.
The iPhone’s Home screen is simple and effortless to navigate by nature, but if you have a lot of apps installed, then it can quickly start to seem like you’re playing a game of ‘I Spy’ every time you attempt to locate certain apps. That’s one reason why we’re fans of the plethora of third-party application launchers that the jailbreak community has brought to the table over the years.
One of the more popular options that comes to mind was InstaLauncher by iOS developer Jonathan Winger Lang, and as of this week, InstaLauncher 2 is now available with full support for iOS 10 and later (including iOS 13).
A component of iOS that you probably see rather frequently when you use the Settings app or other scrollable interfaces is the scrollbar that appears at the right side of the display to give you an idea of where you are on the page.
The scrollbar does a great job of being both a reference point and a means of scrolling up or down a page much more quickly, but it’s lacking something: customization. That’s where a newly released jailbreak tweak called Color My Scrolls by iOS developer TheLazyITGuy comes into play.
Learn how you can control your iPad pointer with the keyboard keys or number pad via a cool new accessibility feature called Mouse Keys.