One of the things I’ve seen a lot of jailbreakers do over the years is change up their Home Screen’s default icon layout. After all, who doesn’t like giving their own device the personalization it deserves?
This capability is possible even on iOS 14 with Apple’s novel Home Screen-based widget system, but various tweak developers have released different jailbreak tweaks with their unique takes on how such a capability should be implemented.
One thing Apple got right with Safari on the iPad was its desktop-class tabbed web browsing, and it really peeves me that a similar tabbed web browsing experience isn’t available on the iPhone — at least not while browsing in the commonly-used portrait orientation, that is.
Given the fact that so many iPhone users resent Apple’s decision not to offer tabbed browsing on the iPhone in all screen orientations, it’s not surprising to see that the jailbreak community continuously provides for users who don’t want Apple making such poor accessibility decisions on their part.
On a bone stock iPhone, the Messages app sports a plain background — either black when using dark mode or white when using light mode. If you’ve ever craved something with a bit more pizzazz than that, then you’d be out of luck.
Fortunately for jailbreakers, running a bone-stock setup isn’t necessary, and a newly released and free jailbreak tweak named ChatWall by iOS developer Chr1s offers an effective way to change the Messages app’s background to virtually anything you want.
I sternly hold the opinion that Apple offers one of the best touch screen-based keyboards in the smartphone industry today, but that hasn’t stopped me from thinking about ways that Apple could make it better. Perhaps my biggest gripe has to do with the amount of wasted space on notched devices — especially at the bottom of the keyboard interface.
Key+ is a newly released jailbreak tweak by iOS developer XCXiao that makes much more productive use of said wasted space on the keyboard interface by filling it with useful commands and shortcuts. These include but aren’t limited to text editing shortcuts for cutting, copying, and pasting text, a way to customize the output of key swipes, a way to rapidly enter pasteboard items, and a quick entry Emoji bar.
Listening to music is a popular activity among iPhone owners, but regardless of what music streaming app you use to jam out to your favorite tunes, one thing is certain: the Now Playing interface can be downright boring.
MusicBackground is a new jailbreak tweak by iOS developer Ethan Whited that hopes to solve this longstanding problem by incorporating eye-catching background effects, and it does this for the Now Playing interfaces in the Apple Music app, Spotify Music app, Tidal app, and even those found in Control Center and on the Lock Screen.
Apple’s AirPods Pro sent a shockwave through the earbud industry when they became some of the first wireless earbuds to support active noise cancellation. Fast-forward to today, and even Apple’s newer AirPods Max over-ear headphones support this feature along with transparency.
But Apple isn’t the only brand pumping out earbuds and headphones with active noise cancellation and features similar to that of the AirPods Pro and AirPods Max. Sadly, the company limits iOS’ native controls to the first party audio consumption devices — requiring the use of third party apps to control third party accessories (eww).
One of the things offered on a Mac that isn’t currently available on the iPhone or iPad out of the box is Guest Mode. This feature allows friends or strangers to log into your device using a separate user account, which means they can take care of what they need to without accessing any of your account’s private and personal files and information.
Anyone that does any capacity of text editing on their iPhone, whether it’s writing a document in Microsoft Word, modifying something drafted out in the Messages app’s text field, or some other form of the matter, may have noticed that the magnifying glass no longer appears when moving the cursor somewhere specific in the body of text.
Apple made this change because you can now pan the cursor across your body of text by tapping and dragging on the keyboard. But that hasn’t stopped a growing number of nostalgic iPhone users from wishing that the classic magnifying glass was still a thing. Said nostalgia is only amplified by the fact that the magnifying glass still exists on the iPad in the latest versions of iPadOS 14.
Looking to add some novelty to your jailbroken iPhone or iPad? If so, then you may want to turn your attention to a newly released jailbreak tweak dubbed Zinnia by iOS developer Aspen.
Zinnia complements various elements of the Lock Screen on your iPhone or iPad with neon effects. Said effects will be applied to things like the Lock Screen’s clock and the newly-added unlock button, the latter of which replaces the native Home Bar.
The keyboard is an integral part of the iPhone’s operating system that users will interface with just about every day. It does everything it’s supposed to do right out of the box, yet Apple doesn’t offer much by way of personalization. That’s just one of many reasons why the keyboard is one of the most popular things to customize upon jailbreaking.
One of the latest jailbreak tweaks to lend a hand in this department is a paid release called ProKeys by iOS developer Justin Proulx, which features eye-catching aesthetics like RGB coloring and animations, along with haptic feedback, among other things.
Apple did something right when they made it possible for users to use a Haptic Touch/3D Touch gesture on individual Home Screen app icons to reveal hidden menus.
When perusing through your iPhone’s Photo Library, you’ll find all your previously snapped photographs and recorded videos. One thing I’ve always noticed about it, however, is that Apple doesn’t offer an automatic replay option for videos saved in the Photo Library.
Automatic replay is available for video content on many third-party apps, and so it always seemed funky to me that Apple didn’t at least provide the option to do the same in the iPhone’s native Photo Library. With that in mind, it’s unsurprising to see that the jailbreak community has once again provided a feature Apple seemingly forgot.