While TrollStore is most commonly known as a perma-signing utility that allows for the permanent installation of sideloadable apps via a CoreTrust exploit, a lesser-known fact is that TrollStore’s powerful CoreTrust exploit offers elevated privileges for your iPhone or iPad’s system. This is what makes TrollStore-centric hacks and add-ons that mimic jailbreak tweak-like functionality possible.
Recently, iOS developer Duy Tran (@TranKha50277352) took to X (formerly Twitter) to share that they had successfully enabled a windowed multitasking experience on a non-jailbroken iPhone using only TrollStore by way of their FrontBoardAppLaunder project.
In follow-up posts, the developer explained that they had spent weeks reverse engineering to learn how SpringBoard, Swift Playgrounds, and Xcode Previews embed apps inside, and this helped them come up with this method for windowed multitasking that doesn’t require a jailbreak to use and works with TrollStore alone.
In a direct message, Duy Tran told us the method works on iOS 15.0 through iOS 17.0, with the latter being the last firmware supported by TrollStore. Additionally, they tell us that the recently released UiharuX utility by @straight_tamago takes advantage of the same implementation.
There are a few known issues that still need to be squashed, such as apps remaining open even after closing them, in-app keyboard offsets being slightly off, keyboard not yet working when windowed on top of SpringBoard, re-opening an app after closing could result in a crash, and single-scene apps don’t work properly just yet.
Windowed multitasking is something that Apple hasn’t yet brought to the mobile device ecosystem but is something a lot of users are familiar with after switching from desktop platforms to more mobile experiences such as the iPad. While Side-by-Side multitasking can feel similar, it’s not the same user experience, so many users still long for the freedom of free-floating windowed multitasking.
While it seems unlikely that Apple will ever implement such a user experience on the iPhone or iPad, users can still turn to hacks like this, or jailbreak tweaks on fully jailbroken devices to achieve this user experience on their device.
Those interested in learning more about Duy Tran’s work can head over to the project’s GitHub page where it’s entirely open source for the world to check out.
Do you get excited to see hacks and add-ons for non-jailbroken devices that bring jailbreak-like functionality to those devices like this one does? Let us know why or why not in the comments section down below.