Image courtesy of Colburp from JailbreakHub

Apple can’t seem to make up their mind with Control Center as it has been through many iterations since its inception in iOS 7. With iOS 10 they added another page for the music controls. This made a lot of sense for a lot of users, the first page is less cluttered and everything is easy to access. Horseshoe, by developer Andy Wiik attempts to bring back a one page Control Center to iOS.

The AirPlay and AirDrop are now combined with Night Shift on the same line, making room for the Media Controls. Tapping the Now Playing section will still open the corresponding app and if you 3D Touch on the icon it will bring up more Media Controls.

Andy released this tweak before Cydia was updated for iOS 10 and Saurik enabled purchases. Working with another developer, Carlos Perez (CPDigitalDarkroom), he was able to a sell Horseshoe through an app linked to PayPal. I’ve been told he will be pushing an update to BigBoss once he’s done adding some features that people were requesting. Here is a link to the release thread with a bit more detail.

On February 9th Andy tweeted a sneak peak at some new features he’s adding. Looks like we will get a lot of options with the next update.

Here @cpdigdarkroom, it took me all day but no more graphical glitches. pic.twitter.com/VGFmy441l0

— Andrew Wiik (@Andywiik) February 10, 2017

Currently the version of Horseshoe I am running doesn’t have any settings to configure, so he doesn’t include a preference pane. I’d probably guess that based on the video he tweeted, all of the settings will be configured right there in the Control Center.

This is a tweak that will stay on my daily driver, combined with Noctis it creates a truly beautiful Control Center experience. Overall Horseshoe is a great tweak that does exactly what it sets out to while definitely being worth the price. It will be out on the BigBoss repo around $2.00 to $3.00 dollars.

Note: the extra toggle in my Control Center is added by a tweak called EasyRecord

Users have requested a dark mode feature from Apple for years now. We have seen hints of it thanks to iOS 10 within the framework of the messages app and we now have a dark Clock app. There’s also tweaks for this found on Cydia like Eclipse and NightMode, allowing users to somewhat achieve a dark UI.

While these tweaks are great at what they do, there are still elements of the UI left out. Noctis, a new tweak from developer LaughingQuoll themes these in a beautiful way.

Dark mode is only the beginning as you also have the option to set a color of your choice, which is a neat feature that will be of use to themers. For convenience there is also a toggle in the Control Center to turn it on and off.

He’s made sure to allow other developers to hook into it to toggle other tweaks as well. All this makes Noctis the central tweak for a dark mode experience on iOS.

You’ll see some familiar toggles in the preference pane and a slider for the shade of dark you’d like. There’s also options to theme the Dock, Action Sheets, and Folders. Like most jailbreak tweaks he gives the users a choice in what they’d like to use.

If an iOS darkmode isn’t what you’re after Noctis still has something to offer. In the preference pane there is a cell labeled “Tint Color” — you can use this to set a custom color that matches your Springboard theme if you’d like. Make sure you enable the “Use Color” toggle and respring for it to take effect. Above I used a blue from my background which is already dark so it’s not the best for showing off this feature.

All in all this is a pretty amazing tweak. I don’t have any complaints other than it having to kill all apps when Eclipse hooks into the On/Off toggle. I spoke with LaughingQuoll about it live on JailCast recently. He actually said that it’s not on his side, that Eclipse is doing it. After he explained it, it made sense.

If you’d like to experience a gorgeous dark mode on your iPhone or iPad then check this tweak out. Noctis will be available for $2.00 on the BigBoss repo.

One of the common modifications a lot of people like to do with a jailbroken iPhone is to change the look and feel of the dock. A person can remove or change the background blur, increase the amount of icons or even completely get rid it. Vinculum, by developer William Vabrinskas, adds a whole new dimension of functionality to the dock by tucking an Android-like app drawer neatly underneath it just a quick swipe away.

Within Vinculum there are a lot of options including hiding the grabber, changing the size of icons, and using a dark background which also changes your dock background. You can also set it to automatically activate search after swiping up, this makes it just like Spotlight and could replace it for some users. As with most jailbreak tweaks, users can customize the experience to suit their needs.

Vinculum was created to fulfill a request on Reddit and was initially going to be known by a different name, but was rejected due to possible copyright infringement:

“Well after Nexus was rejected for copyright infringement I looked up synonyms for Nexus and Vinculum was one of the ones that came up. I chose it for two reasons, it sounded cool, and it’s definition. Vinculum means “a connecting band of tissue, such as that attaching a flexor tendon to the bone of a finger or toe”. To me this was perfect because I was “stitching” together Android and iOS. I created somewhat of an organic connection between the two with this tweak so I thought it was fitting.

The idea for the tweak was actually a request on r/jailbreak”

With this tweak also comes the additional functionality of hiding apps from the springboard. This sort of goes hand in hand with the tweaks true use-case, by hiding most of your apps it makes you to look in your drawer for apps that you’ve hidden.

Hiding apps is easy, just press and hold on any icon like you would when moving apps and a little ‘hide’ button appears on the bottom right of the icons. To bring it back just head on over into Vinculum’s preference pane and re-enable the app you just hid. In addition, I should also add that hiding apps only hides them on the SpringBoard and not in the drawer itself.

I have been testing this tweak for William since he was calling it DockDrawer. It has came a long way in terms of stability and functionality while remaining true to it’s original intent. I haven’t fully integrated it into my day to day work flows, but it’s really nice to have tucked away when I need it, and I love that it provides a dark background blur for my dock.

Vinculum is $0.99 cents on the ModMyi repo in Cydia, go check it out today if you’d like to hide apps and have more functionality in your dock.

Josh also runs JailCast, a podcast dedicated to the world of jailbreaking that does regular in-depth episodes. You can back and support Jailcast over Patreon and via PayPal.

Xen is a revolutionary new tweak from developer Matt Clark (@_Matchstic) that’s currently in beta for $4.00, and available through his new app called Beta Vendor. It’s a relatively new process for accessing a beta, however, it’s pretty neat and this Reddit post explains how to install Beta Vendor and then Xen.

It should be noted that Xen is the spiritual successor to the tweak Convergance which Matt made after being inspired by some comments by Sentry (@Sentry_NC) about the iOS 7 lock screen. He will still support Convegance for people who’s purchased it on iOS 8 and below, but Xen is the new direction he’s taking.

I personally found the process rather delightful, Beta Vendor is very well designed and seamlessly integrated into Cydia even though it’s a separate app altogether. Once you go through the steps to pay via Paypal you’re directed to the package in Cydia.

You need to install Matts special repo for Xen of course, however it’s all lined out in that Reddit thread linked above. Trust me though, it’s well worth it. Also, if you don’t have a PayPal you can contact Matt and he will work something out with you.

Once you’ve installed Xen to your device you’re greeted with an elegant set up screen that walks you through the process of picking which widgets you’d like to access on your lock screen. You can even add your Notification Center Widgets to a page on your lock screen just like in iOS 10!

While it’s not exactly the same, there’s enough similarity for me. With this version of Xen, Matt has included five different widgets: Launchpad, Toggles, Calendar, Weather and NC Widgets. There’s currently plans to create more as time goes on and also is going to provide an API for developers to create their own as well.

Launchpad is basically a GridSwitcher-type screen with some user chosen apps to display for quick launching from your lock screen. Toggles is a Control Center style screen that replaces the need for it on the lock screen. Calendar is a minimalist view of your week with an optional agenda view to quickly see what you’ve got coming up.

Weather is identical to the page that the tweak Forecast provides and looks and acts almost exactly like the weather app itself. Finally, NC widgets lets you have all of your Notification Center Widgets available right on your lock screen which was one of the cooler features of iOS 10 if I do say so myself.

One of my favorite features is called ‘Morning Summary’ (pictured above), which greets you at a configurable time and provides a little forecast that’s similar to the one found in the Notification Center. Another feature I really love is his redesigned notifications (shown to the side), they don’t look exactly like iOS 10 and that’s on purpose. I think they look better than iOS 10’s notifications, but that just me.

Xen will be in beta for a little while longer, but word has it that it’ll be available on BigBoss once it’s done and anyone who’s participated in the beta will get the tweak for free once it’s released.

Be sure to check out the JailCast episode with Matt as a special guest if you’d like to know more and hear us talk about a bunch of jailbreak related stuff, he’s a really great guy.

Everyone loves to have their iPhone reflect a bit of their personality; whether or not that is a fully jailbroken and customized device or a completely stock look and feel, it still reflects the owner in some way. One of the easier ways to customize your device is the wallpaper and there’s a lot of options out there. You can choose from one of the many that are shipped with your version of iOS or even use your own pictures.

iDeviceWalls is a site made by my good friend Junior of JunesiPhone.com that specializes in collecting beautiful wallpapers for your iOS devices. While the website is good, the iOS app is even better. Available only through Cydia, it allows you to browse the site and then apply a wallpaper directly to your device without saving it in your camera roll. For me this is huge because my camera roll is already bloated with all my screenshots from articles and photos from other sources.

This feature is really neat and available only through the app, as it uses iOS’s own function for applying wallpapers. As someone who likes to regularly change their wallpaper I find it very handy. You can save the wallpaper to your camera roll if you’d like, just tap on ‘Save’ and it will do the rest. I have always found myself searching for more sources of wallpapers to use and I feel like I’ve hit a gold mine with this app.

If you’re like me and love beautiful wallpapers, check out iDeviceWalls for free in Cydia on the MacCiti repo and of course Junes own SuperSecret repo. If you’re not jailbroken for whatever reason then you can still use your browser to access iDeviceWalls.com.