The iPad offers the same useful Control Center interface that the iPhone and iPod touch do, and while that’s great, it’s also the biggest problem.
While Control Center’s features are both convenient and useful, the issue I take with the interface on the iPad is that it leaves so much screen real estate unused. In fact, it’s literally an iPhone’s Control Center interface crammed at the edge of the iPad’s large display.
A growing trend I’m seeing lately is jailbreakers flocking to /r/jailbreak or other forms of social media to share their handset’s uptime. In essence, some jailbreakers appear to enjoy showing off their pwned handset’s stability, especially with regard to one jailbreak versus another.
One way to do this is to show off how long a particular handset has been running in a jailbroken state without needing to be re-jailbroken, as a longer uptime indicates that the handset hasn’t crashed or forcefully rebooted itself.
One of my favorite elements of Control Center is the connectivity module, which resides on the top shelf of the interface and provides nearly all of the toggle buttons for my handset’s wireless radios, including Bluetooth, Cellular, Wi-Fi, and a handy button for immediate access to Airplane Mode, among other things.
As much as I like the connectivity module in terms of its functionality, I’ve always thought that it would be more exciting if Apple provided a way for users to colorize the user experience to suit their tastes. While it doesn’t seem that Apple shares the same interests that I do, a free jailbreak tweak dubbed Aestea Revived by iOS developers Litten and Luki120 certainly hits close to home on the subject.
The jailbreak community exists because users demand more from their handsets’ user experiences than the manufacturer might be willing to provide out of the box. The iPhone is no different, and Apple knows that.
The latest jailbreak tweak release to elevate the iOS user experience beyond that of what Apple offers on a stock handset is one called Jarvis by iOS developers SouthernGirlWhoCode and MeBlackHat. Jarvis provides the end user more convenient access to a slew of useful features in such a way that the tweak could only be described as an all-in-one command center.
I love how convenient Control Center makes it to toggle my iPhone or iPad’s controls on or off in a pinch, but I’m almost certain that anyone who’d grab my iPhone when I’m not looking might feel exactly the same way. In fact, Control Center makes it far too easy for a thief or mischief-maker to toggle Airplane Mode as a hindrance to handset recovery, and that’s enough to make anyone second-guess the added convenience…
Grounded is a brand new and free jailbreak tweak by iOS developer biD3V that’s designed to prevent such issues from living rent-free in your head. The tweak works by allowing users to make certain Control Center toggles unusable as long as your iPhone or iPad is locked, but they become usable the moment you authenticate yourself.
AirDrop, iCloud, and a bevy of other services provided by Apple have helped to create a nearly seamless user experience for those owning both an iOS device and a Mac. But if you’ve ever wanted a tighter integration than what already exists, then you’d be S.O.L., at least… without the help of a jailbroken handset.
Fortunately for those who do have jailbroken handset(s) at their disposal, a newly released jailbreak tweak dubbed Ekip by iOS developer maximehip can upgrade the level of integration that users might come to expect while using their iPhone or iPad and their Mac in the same general vicinity.
It goes without saying that Control Center would be one of the more advantageous additions to iOS over the years. But despite how great Control Center is, that hasn’t stopped the jailbreak community from tweaking it in imaginative ways to make it better for the end user.
One such example is a newly released and free jailbreak tweak known as CCCounters by iOS developer 0xkuj. Once installed, CCCounters monitors Control Center toggle usage and displays the most recent instance in which those toggles were switched on or off.
The Status Bar plays host to a digital clock almost all of the time, except of course when you launch Control Center. Once you do, the clock disappears from the Status Bar and is replaced by the cellular and Wi-Fi connection indicators and your carrier’s name instead.
Few people would refer to this as a problem, but it’s an annoyance for some who wish that the time would merely remain in the Status Bar even after Control Center is launched. Fortunately, a new and free jailbreak tweak called CClock by iOS developer Obumbravit offers a useful workaround.
Spotify is one of the most popular music streaming services available for the iOS & iPadOS platforms apart from Apple's own Apple Music streaming service. But if anything’s painfully obvious, it’s the fact that Apple nerfs the functionality of third-party apps and services that compete with its own by limiting what they can do on their platform; this effectively makes Apple’s own services look better by comparison, and intentionally so.
If you’re an avid Spotify user and you also have a jailbroken iPhone or iPad at your disposal, then you could probably benefit from the likes of a newly released jailbreak tweak dubbed Zefy by iOS developer udevs. This tweak implements a few handy workarounds for iOS to make Spotify feel more like a native music player than just a third-party alternative to Apple’s.
Apple created iOS’ Control Center interface to be an all-in-one hub for shortcuts and toggles, but for whatever reason, the company limits the shortcut selection to a small number of native apps without so much as the seemingly necessary option to configure custom app shortcuts of the end user’s choice.
If, like me, you despise Apple’s systematic disregard for user configuration, then there’s no doubt in my mind that you’ll enjoy the likes of a newly released and free jailbreak tweak called Coeus by iOS developer Azzou.
The iPhone’s Status Bar exists to provide users with pertinent information at a glance. Whether you’re checking to see the current time, your handset’s current signal strength, or how much battery life you’ve got left, chances are you look at it somewhat frequently.
One thing that has always sort of bothered me however is that the Status Bar’s time display disappears when you launch the Control Center interface, and that’s a gripe that a newly released and free jailbreak tweak dubbed CCTime13 by iOS developer 0xkuj aims to solve.
When Apple introduced Dark Mode with iOS 13, they were smart enough to integrate a convenient toggle button into the Control Center interface so that users could easily switch between the dark and light interfaces on demand without much headache. That said, it’s somewhat of a head-scratcher as to why Apple didn’t do the same for Night Shift, instead choosing to obfuscate it by hiding it inside of the display brightness module.
If you want a non-obfuscated Night Shift-centric Control Center toggle button, then we’ve got good news for you – jailbroken devices now have access to a newly released and free CCSupport extension dubbed Night Shift Module by iOS developer shepgoba that brings this simple concept to life.