Remember all those jailbreak tweaks that used to bring classic Pokémon game-styled aesthetics to iPhone and iPad notifications? PokeBar, one that we showed you back in 2020, comes to mind, as does a similar release for iOS 12 by iOS developer SkittyBlock. These add-ons were popular among jailbreak enthusiasts, and among fans of the original Pokémon games.
It seems like there’s been an apparent resurgence in interest in these tweaks ever since the Delta emulator app came out in the App Store, which is why we’re excited to share that iOS developer pkgFiles has just released Pokébox Reborn, a reincarnation of SkittyBlock’s original tweak for the latest rootless jailbreaks including Dopamine and palera1n.
In an announcement post shared to /r/jailbreak this week, pkgFiles said that Pokébox Reborn is intended to be as much of a recreation of the original as possible, but with polishing to help it look how it should on modern devices and with the newest user interfaces.
As you can see in the screenshot examples above, the tweak makes your incoming notifications look just like they were coming through on an older Game Boy-based Pokémon game. The look and feel of this are acquired tastes, especially if you’re fond of those games. It works together with a popular jailbreak tweak called PokeCall, which applies a similar theme to your incoming phone calls.
Once installed, Pokébox Reborn also adds a dedicated preference pane to the Settings app where you can configure several options to your liking:
Things that you can do here include:
- Toggle PokéBox Reborn on or off on demand
- Choose a style, whether that’s light, dark, or something else
- Choose a font that you would like to use
- Adjust the title size via a slider
- Adjust the text size via a slider
- Toggle text animations on or off on demand
- Adjust the animation speed via a slider
- Toggle offsets for text on or off on demand
- Adjust the text offsets via a slider
- Respring to save any changes you’ve made
- And more…
We should note that the notification icon position is based on the text position, and the developer says that there is a known bug where the notification icon changes its frame, line-by-line, if animations are enabled. This is a bug that the developer hopes to fix, but it will take time as tweak development isn’t their primary focus in life right now.
If you’re interested in giving the PokéBox Reborn jailbreak tweak a try, then you can download it for free from pkgFiles’ personal repository via your favorite package manager app. The tweak supports jailbroken iOS & iPadOS 15 and 16 devices and is open source on the developer’s GitHub page for anyone who wants to learn more about what makes it tick.
Likewise, if you’re not already using pkgFiles’ personal repository, then you can add it to your package manager app of choice by using the URL that we’ve provided for you below:
https://pkgfiles.github.io/
Are you planning to Pokémon-ize your jailbroken handset’s notification system? Let us know why or why not in the comments section down below.