Review

Give your Control Center interface a fresh coat of paint with CustomizeCC

Anthony Bouchard ∙ July 27, 2020

One of the iOS interfaces that the vast majority of iPhone users take advantage of on a daily basis is Control Center. It’s functionally straightforward and convenient to use. Apart from customizing the controls that appear in Control Center, however, Apple doesn’t provide much by way of customization, especially in terms of aesthetics.

Enter CustomizeCC, a newly released and free jailbreak tweak by iOS developer Miguel that lets jailbreakers take unfettered control over the appearance of the Control Center interface. As you might’ve discerned for yourself via the screenshot examples above, CustomizeCC imbues users with a slew of new colorization options for making your Control Center interface unique.

Jailbreak tweaks of the week: Axon Reborn, Lyricize, QuickConnect, and more…

Anthony Bouchard ∙ July 26, 2020

It's been an interesting week for the jailbreak community. Not only did the unc0ver jailbreak receive an important update with support for the latest iOS 12.4.8 on the iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, and iPad Air 1st generation, but two important tidbits of news surfaced involving the Pangu Team, including an iOS 14 jailbreak demo and a successful hacking of the iPhone's SEP; but more on that later. At the start of this piece, we'll talk about all the latest jailbreak tweaks that you may have missed because of life.

As usual, we'll start off by showcasing our favorite releases of the bunch first and then wrap things up with an outline of the rest afterward.

DockChanger brings the classic Dock to notched iPhones and vice versa

Anthony Bouchard ∙ July 26, 2020

If you owned an iPhone before the days when Apple began incorporating Face ID and the infamous ‘notch,’ then you probably remember the classic Home Screen application Dock with the edge-to-edge background. Fast-forward to now, and modern iPhones’ Docks sport a floating appearance rather than the traditional edge-to-edge background.

Whether you’ve got a notched iPhone at your disposal and you’re feeling nostalgic over the traditional Dock UI or you’ve got a notchless iPhone and feel left out because your Dock doesn’t have the same floating aesthetic that newer handsets have, a newly released and free jailbreak tweak named DockChanger by iOS developer Thomz could be just what you’re looking for.

Axon Reborn groups missed notifications on the Lock Screen by app

Anthony Bouchard ∙ July 25, 2020

Longtime jailbreakers will probably remember Priority Hub as one of the best notification-centric jailbreak tweaks of all time. It was so popular that after the original developer stopped maintaining it, iOS developer Nepeta came out with an alternative to Priority Hub dubbed Axon mid-last year that brought with it full-fledged support for pwned iOS 11 and 12 devices.

We entered the age of the jailbroken iOS 13 device a rather long time ago, and as you might come to expect, history tends to repeat itself. With that sentiment in mind, it may be too surprising that Nepeta has released a new and free jailbreak tweak called Axon Reborn with novel support for pwned iOS 13 devices.

Access your favorite contacts from anywhere in iOS with QuickConnect

Anthony Bouchard ∙ July 25, 2020

By now, most folks already know that iOS 14 will permit users to pin their favorite conversations at the top of the Messages app. But wouldn’t it be nice if you could pin your favorite contacts to various parts of iOS system wide as opposed to being confined to just one app?

That’s the thinking behind a newly released jailbreak tweak dubbed QuickConnect by iOS developer Elias Sfeir, and as depicted in the screenshot examples above, the tweak lets users pin their favorite contacts to frequently used parts of the iOS platform, including the App Switcher and the Lock Screen.

MusicGround complements music playback on iOS with animated wallpapers

Anthony Bouchard ∙ July 25, 2020

Lots of folks rely on their iOS devices as their primary music consumption devices, and so it’s sort of a head-scratcher as to why Apple doesn’t provide more of an interactive listening experience. In the jailbreak community, we’ve seen a plethora of workarounds for this, including the introduction of music visualizers for the Now Playing interface and more.

A newly released and free jailbreak tweak dubbed MusicGround by iOS developer Tr1fecta, on the other hand, takes a slightly different approach. Instead of giving users an animated Now Playing interface, this tweak provides users with an animated Metal Lyrics-inspired wallpaper that comes alive whenever music is playing.

This tweak lets users reassign the Reachability gesture to other actions

Anthony Bouchard ∙ July 24, 2020

Although I don’t use my iPhone’s Reachability interface that often, I do think that the gesture for invoking it is particularly clever on notched devices. Unfortunately, since I don’t really use Reachability that much, I find that the gesture goes to waste more than being useful.

If, like me, you rarely use the Reachability interface and would rather use the convenient Home Bar-based gesture for something more useful, then you’ll probably like a newly released and free jailbreak tweak called CantReachMe by iOS developer woodfairy. With it, you can map the native Reachability gesture to a new action of your choosing.

MusicAlbumScroll Supercharges the Apple Music app with new gestures & more

Anthony Bouchard ∙ July 22, 2020

Apple Music users have a lot to brag about. Not only is it one of the best music streaming experiences on the iOS platform, but it also brings a native user interface with full Siri integration and a ton of other perks. But pleasantries aside, it does have a few shortcomings – namely in the user interface department.

MusicAlbumScroll is a newly released and free jailbreak tweak by iOS developer Ethan Whited that improves upon the native Apple Music interface with some much-needed scrolling capabilities. With it, you can scroll horizontally between recently added albums, adjust spacing values, and even give your Apple Music app a rounded artwork aesthetic.

PinHeads WhatsApp ports iOS 14’s conversation pinning UI to WhatsApp

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated December 20, 2021

At the start of the month, we showed you a jailbreak tweak called PinHeads by iOS developer Ahmad that ported iOS 14’s conversation pinning capabilities in the Messages app to pwned iOS 13 devices. It was such a hit in the jailbreak community that we quickly saw competing tweak releases aiming to bring the same functionality to users’ handsets. Unfortunately, conversation pinning for third-party messaging apps seemed to be largely ignored… at least until now.

PinHeads WhatsApp is another new jailbreak tweak, also by iOS developer Ahmad, that brings iOS 14-esque conversation pinning capabilities to the third-party WhatsApp Messenger app. As shown in the screenshot examples above and below, the interface is heavily inspired by iOS 14’s native implementation, and as you might come to expect, the tweak’s behavior can be configured depending on the user’s own personal preferences.

This tweak puts a song counter at the top of each Spotify playlist

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated July 29, 2020

Spotify has long been one of my favorite media streaming apps – perhaps even more so than Apple’s native Apple Music platform. But one thing that has always managed to grind my gears is how the playlist interface doesn’t even so much as display the number of songs you’ve added to it.

Fortunately, a solution for this problem now exists in the form of a newly released and free jailbreak tweak subbed SpotifyPlaylistNumberOfSongs by iOS developer Aleksilassila.

Jailbreak tweaks of the week: Aperio, Colorful, iAutoReply, and more…

Anthony Bouchard ∙ July 19, 2020

If your iPhone or iPad is jailbroken and you're in search of the best new add-ons for augmenting your handset's out-of-the-box functionality, then you've come to the right place. This roundup will encompass all the latest jailbreak tweaks released between Monday, July 13th and Sunday July 19th.

As usual, we'll kick things off by showcasing our favorite releases from this past week. Afterward, we'll outline all the rest of the releases so you don't miss a beat.

This tweak lets you view the date in your Status Bar by tapping the time

Anthony Bouchard ∙ July 18, 2020

Anyone in the market for adding a subtle touch of satisfying functionality to their iPhone’s Status Bar should be shifting their undivided attention toward the likes of a newly released and free jailbreak tweak dubbed TapTapTipTapTime by iOS developer YulkyTulky.

While the name is a bit of a head-scratcher, don’t let that be the deterrent that prevents you from installing something you didn’t know you needed. TapTapTipTapTime basically lets you tap on the Status Bar’s time display to reveal the current date, and vice-versa.