Sometimes, the simplest things in life are the best things in life. Take cookies for example; they're not complex, in fact, they're just batter and chocolate chips; but for a cookie lover, they're oh so delightful.
You can think of SwitcherPages in much of the same way. It's not the most complex tweak in the world, but if you like the concept of gathering your bearings on the App Switcher menu, it's a great thing to have...
After we spent years begging Apple to finally add multitasking to iOS, the boffins in Cupertino relented, bringing the joys of multiple running apps to our iPhones and iPads. Well, sort of.
Apple's implementation has many-a-geek arguing over whether it really is multitasking. Once you get past that little hiccup, it works surprisingly well. But could it be better?
The launch of iOS multitasking hasn't stopped the creative types from showing us how they think multiple apps should be handled, and a new video caught our eye today, and we're rather impressed...
Isn't it funny that Cydia rarely stumbles into the conversation when someone asks what your favorite jailbreak app is? When you think about it, Cydia is far and away the most important, and well put together jailbreak app of them all. It just so happens that it's also the main source of other jailbreak tweaks and apps.
Saurik's brainchild is the reason that most of us are able to thoroughly enjoy jailbreaking today. We also appreciate how hard he has worked over the years to improve the performance and features of Cydia. The 1.1 update still brings a smile to my face, after all.
That all being said, one of the main complaints about Cydia stem from its lack of true multitasking. Saurik graciously included a nice resume feature in his previous update, but that still isn't the same as having true multitasking. Thankfully, enabling multitasking is about as easy as it gets. Check inside for a video tutorial that shows you how to enable multitasking in Cydia...
Although Apple took a couple of years to implement system-wide multitasking in iOS, it seems to do the trick. It's easy to access the multitasking bar from any application, and for the most part, apps running in the background don't slow you up.
Note that I said for the most part. It seems like once you have 10 or more apps running, your iPhone starts to feel a bit sluggish. And to close them all one by one can be a tedious task. So why not download a jailbreak utility that'll do it for you in one step?
Apple's implementation of multitasking in iOS 4 is undoubtedly one of the best in the business. Not necessarily in presentation, but in functionality. iOS' ability to maintain a high level of performance with dozens of apps open easily outperforms the competition.
The problem is, since you are able to have so many apps running without noticeable effects, sifting through your multitask bar can become a bit tedious. If you've been looking for an alternative way to browse your list of running applications, well, let me introduce you to RunningList...
SBSettings is always the first tweak I install after jailbreaking. Even when it's not installed, I find myself swiping at the statusbar expecting a menu to drop. The simple utility gives me quick access to toggle Wi-Fi and Bluetooth settings, as well as a respring function.
Though I've yet to find anything in Cydia that matches the functionality of SBSettings, the competition is certainly heating up. Jeff recently told you about Homescreen Settings, which places the actions on your springboard. I'm going to tell you about SwitcherSettings, which adds the functions to your app switcher...
WidgetTask is a new jailbreak widget for the iOS 5 beta that adds a multitasking tray to Notification Center. This widget is from the same people behind UISettings - another third party widget that's available for iOS 5 beta jailbreakers.
Like SpringPrefs, WidgetTask adds itself to the iOS Notification Center under your already-installed widgets. Instead of having to double tap the home button to access your multitasking tray, WidgetTask will allow you to switch apps with ease from the Notification Center pulldown.
When you switch from app to app with the iPhone's nifty multitasking tray, apps fly in on top of each other from left to right with a cool "card swipe" effect. If you'd like a change of pace, a new jailbreak tweak, by Filippo Bigarella, called verticalAppToApp will bring vertical animation to your iPhone's multitasking.
verticalAppToApp is part of a project called TweakWeek. TweakWeek releases a new, free jailbreak tweak every day for 8 weeks from prominent jailbreak developers in the community. verticalAppToApp follows some of Filippo Bigarella's other TweakWeek contributions, like TheftAlarm and SwishUnlock.
Earlier today we did a post about Whited00r, a custom firmware built for older Apple ARM6 devices. It includes built-in tweaks and gives you the option to remove unwanted features like Spotlight to make your device faster.
Whited00r has been out for a while, but it's kind of flown under the radar. There's still millions of these older devices floating around, so we figured we'd give folks an easy walkthrough on how to install Whited00r on your older iPhone or iPod touch...
Cydia's recent update made the jailbroken app store faster and brought about some other nice improvements. One of those new features was the ability to resume your place in Cydia after exiting the app, so you weren't forced to start over each time you closed it.
Though it was a major step up from the previous version, it's not real multitasking. Downloading something in Cydia typically renders the rest of your iPhone helpless, but what if I told you there was an easy way to enable true multitasking?
Last week we showed you a concept video by Jan-Michael Cart of how speech recognition might work on iOS 5. Although it is just a concept developed by a person not related to Apple, it's still interesting to see how things might work one day on the iPhone. Jan-Michael is back at it this week with a concept video of how multitasking and app switching might work on iOS 5.
Even though Apple made a huge step forward with iOS 4 and the introduction of multitasking, there is still some room for improvement, and this video is the proof of it...
I've always wanted a way to listen to my music from the iPod app while I play games on my iPhone. Until multitasking came to iOS, that was just a pipe dream. Yet, even after Apple introduced multitasking, I still didn't really have the ability.
Many iOS games have their own soundtrack and completely turn off your iPod music. Luckily, the folks over at FSM have provided an easy tutorial for a work-around that will allow you to rock your own music while gaming on your iDevice...