Looking for a way to take better advantage of the Dynamic Island on your jailbroken or bootstrapped device, whether it has a native Dynamic Island, or a software ported version for notched devices? If so, then a new jailbreak tweak called NiceAperture by iOS developer NiceiOs just might pique your interest.
In a nutshell, NiceAperture replaces the standard banner notifications that you get in iOS with Dynamic Island-based alerts instead, as depicted in the screenshot examples above.
NiceAperture can use the Dynamic Island for notifications from the Messages app, as well as other apps. In fact, right out of the box, it does so automatically. For certain apps with interactive banner notifications that you can reply from, such as the Messages app, you can do this right from the Dynamic Island.
The developer shared a video demonstration of the tweak at work on his X (formerly Twitter) account this week, so if you want to see how it works, be sure to check that out. The animations are so fluid and smooth that you would have thought this was a native feature.
Once installed, NiceAperture adds a preference pane to the Settings app where you can activate your license and configure several options to your liking:
The preference pane is divided into several different sections, which we will outline for you below:
Basic Settings
In the Basic Settings preference pane, users can:
- Adjust the vertical margin via a slider
- Adjust the horizontal margin via a slider
- Adjust the text spacing via a slider
- Adjust the text offset via a slider
- Issue a test notification to see how it looks
Avatar Settings
In the Avatar Settings preference pane, users can:
- Adjust the avatar size via a slider
- Enable or disable Circle Head
- Hide or show the badge
- Issue a test notification to see how it looks
Title Settings
In the Title Settings preference pane, users can:
- Adjust the font size via a slider
- Adjust the font color by entering a HEX code value
- Enable or disable the scrolling text animation effect
- Stop the scrolling when the end of the message is reached
- Adjust the scrolling speed via a slider
- Issue a test notification to see how it looks
Message Settings
In the Message Settings preference pane, users can:
- Adjust the font size via a slider
- Adjust the font color by entering a HEX code value
- Enable or disable the scrolling text animation effect
- Stop the scrolling when the end of the message is researched
- Adjust the scrolling speed via a slider
- Issue a test notification to see how it looks
The tweak is a small detail that completely changes the way we’d interact with notifications, and in my opinion, this is how Apple should have implemented notifications on Dynamic Island-equipped handsets. Sadly, however, they didn’t think of it.
Personally, I love the idea behind NiceAperture and I’m glad that the developer brought it to fruition. Those who agree and who would like to give it a try can download it from the developer’s personal repository via their favorite package manager app and then activate it by purchasing an $8 license. The tweak is only intended for jailbroken or bootstrapped iOS 16 devices, which means that you can use it with RootHide and Serotonin in addition to with jailbreaks.
If you’re not already using NiceiOs’ personal repository, then you can add it to your package manager app of choice by using the URL provided below (note the http instead of https):
http://global.niceios.com/
Are you going to be taking advantage of NiceAperture? Let us know why or why not in the comments section down below.