Ten Great Jailbreak Tweaks for the iPhone

[Anthony Bouchard]

Have you just jailbroken your iPhone on iOS 5.1.1 using the newest version of Absinthe? If not, check out our guide on how to jailbreak iOS 5.1.1 with Absinthe 2.0.1!

Figuring out what you want to download in an application store of infinite possibilities after your first time jailbreaking can be difficult. Luckily, ModMyi has your back! Refresh all of your Cydia sources, because here are ten great tweaks to get you started with your newly jailbroken iPhone running iOS 5.1.1. (Yes, all of these tweaks are iOS 5.1.1 compatible – we checked!)

1. Zephyr

Zephyr (by chpwn) can be found useful for almost any iPhone owner. The tweak brings multitasking touch gestures to the iPhone so that you can swipe with any number of fingers to perform multitasking tasks instead of mashing down on your home button constantly. Zephyr allows you to pull up from the bottom of the screen to exit applications or pull up and wait a moment to open the application switcher. Additionally, you can swipe left and right from the edge of the screen to switch between running applications. As a bonus, Zephyr includes a new Notification Center animation. Zephyr will cost you $4.99 and is available from the BigBoss repository.



2. Springtomize 2

Springtomize (by Filippo Bigarella) is another top-selling jailbreak tweak for the iPhone. Many iPhone owners like Springtomize 2 because it’s a powerful bundle tweak. It doesn’t just serve one purpose, but instead it serves over one-hundred purposes in one tweak. The tweak makes it so you can customize nearly any feature of your SpringBoard from your home screen, to your Notification Center, to your lock screen, and more. It offers a lot of popular features such as icon resizing, feature enabling and disabling, animation options, and custom appearances. Springtomize 2 will set you back $2.99 to reserve your copy from the BigBoss repository, but for everything it comes packed with, the price is an absolute bargain.



3. PasswordPilot

PasswordPilot (by Filippo Bigarella) will remember your Apple ID password every time you download an application from the App Store on your iPhone. If there is one thing everyone hates about iOS, it is typing out a password when we want to download games and applications. PasswordPilot comes with an obvious security risk for anyone without passcode-locked iOS devices as anyone can download anything from the App Store on your iPhone. It is highly recommended that you use some kind of security measure such as application locking tweaks or an iOS passcode so people cannot download arbitrary applications on your iPhone. PasswordPilot is free on the BigBoss repository and it saves a ton of time.



4. TetherMe

TetherMe (by Sam Bingner) allows you to tether your iPhone's cellular data connection for free. Tethering allows you to share your data connection with other devices such as computers, tablets, and other smartphones. It’s like having a wireless router in your pocket that works everywhere. Usually, cellular providers charge extra for tethering and it’s usually pretty expensive and limited. TetherMe unlocks the iPhone’s native tethering feature without having to pay the cellular provider to activate it for you. Now you can use your computer anywhere. TetherMe will cost you $4.99 to download it from the BigBoss repository, but it’s well worth the money compared to the expensive monthly payments the cellular providers will charge you. If the cellular provider catches you tethering without paying them, they could alter your contract and you could end up paying more per month for tethering.



5. iFile

iFile (by Carsten Heinelt) is an application for iOS that allows you to browse through iOS’ filesystem as easily as you do on your Windows or Mac OS X computer. It is a good alternative to having to SSH into your iPhone, as it can be done directly from the device without the need for a computer. iFile integrates right into a lot of popular applications such as Dropbox to make sharing files between devices very easy. As a long-lived classic, no iOS device should be naked of iFile. iFile has an unlimited free trial, so if you just jailbroke your iPhone, you should grab this.



6. Barrel

Barrel (by Aaron Ash) gives you the ability to change the animation of paging through your home screen's pages of applications. Barrel has tons of animations to choose from so you can make the animation as stylish or as simple as you want to. The animations are absolutely fluid and don’t take up too much of the system resources to run. Barrel can be downloaded from the BigBoss repository for $2.99.



7. CallBar

CallBar (by Joshua Tucker and Elias Limneos) is a jailbreak tweak that makes phone calls more intuitive on the iPhone. While the normality is for an incoming phone call to fill up the entire iPhone screen with the iOS phone interface and disturb whatever you may have been doing, CallBar fixes this by creating a banner-like notification when an incoming phone call begins. The banner supports swipe gestures for choosing what to do with the call such as ignoring it or answering it. While the tweak comes in at a $3.99 price tag on the BigBoss repository, it is a good investment for iPhone owners that want less obtrusive calls.



8. IntelliScreenX

IntelliScreenX (by Intelliborn) is an application that brings Notification Center functionality to the lock screen and adds many more features to Notification Center that weren’t there before. The application adds an RSS feed, Twitter feed, Facebook feed, a top shelf with toggles, and many notification options such as status bar icons. Additionally, IntelliScreenX comes with a quick-composition application for text messaging dubbed Messages+ and it works with both text messages and iMessage. All together, this package makes a great addition to iOS. IntelliScreenX can be found on the ModMyi repository for $9.99.



9. Aloud

Aloud (by Ori Kadosh) is a jailbreak tweak bringing announced notifications to iOS. While iOS 5 has a great notification system, you will never get your notifications if you are not near your iPhone. Aloud fixes this problem by making all notifications read out loud to you – the announcement includes not only the message, but also the application and the sender of the notification. Aloud has many different options to configure including which applications it should speak for, Activator actions for the tweak, and announcing directions from the Maps application. Aloud is available on the ModMyi repository for $1.99.



10. SBSettings

SBSettings (by BigBoss) puts a whole bunch of toggles and options right under your fingertips. SBSettings is a classic tweak that almost every jailbroken iPhone runs these days. It includes icon-hiding capabilities, tweak disabling capabilities, and even power options. If you have never tried SBSettings, it is a good go-to tweak to install so you have easy Wi-Fi, 3G, and other popular toggles. By default, SBSettings is easily invoked by swiping across the status bar. For everything that is packed into SBSettings, it's almost amazing that it is free. You can find it in the BigBoss repository.

There are also many other good tweaks out there, however these ten have been selected because of popularity, practicality, functionality, or cosmetic gorgeousness. If you want to learn about even more awesome jailbreak tweaks or even App Store applications, then check out our Staff favorites post!

[chubakakid]

What is that SBSettings skin that is being used?

Looks sick

Great read by the way.

[celeron]

That's one of the default themes

[unvaluablespace]

Should be called "serious sbsettings". I believe it's installed with sbsettings. (is for me at least).

[itzbilly]

What is that SBSettings skin that is being used?

Looks sick

Great read by the way.

BlurredNCBackground it's a tweak not a skin, unless you mean the buttons in which it's serioussam or something, comes with it when you install sbsettings

[mustard05]

Why is it when I just looked for Zepher in Cydia, it cost 4.99 , but this article states 2.99? Great research buddy.

[Anthony Bouchard]

Why is it when I just looked for Zepher in Cydia, it cost 4.99 , but this article states 2.99? Great research buddy.

You'll have to excuse me. The Zephyr page no longer shows the price of the tweak after you own it. At the time I wrote a review on the tweak, it did cost $2.99. Chpwn must have upped the price.

[A New DAY]

*SIGH* I remember the good old days before devs started charging stupid amounts for mediocre TWEAKS (not even apps)... $3 for something like Barrel? Give me a break.

[celeron]

You'll have to excuse me. The Zephyr page no longer shows the price of the tweak after you own it. At the time I wrote a review on the tweak, it did cost $2.99. Chpwn must have upped the price.

Glad I bought zephyr when it was $2.99. $5 is just too much for zephyr

[TheDirtyDiddler]

[QUOTE=A New DAY;6546411]*SIGH* I remember the good old days before devs started charging stupid amounts for mediocre TWEAKS (not even apps)... $3 for something like Barrel? Give me a break. QUOTE]

ZOMG THREE DOLLAS!!!!11
An order of McNuggets it soooo much more worth it!

[KSMatic]

can we do 10 jailbreak tweak for ipads?

i know some tweaks work with ipads but some don't

[Anarchy23]

Aloud doesn't work any more since the latest jailbreak. At least on my 4s. A pity. Or am I the only one ?

[jtmf]

[QUOTE=TheDirtyDiddler;6546424]

*SIGH* I remember the good old days before devs started charging stupid amounts for mediocre TWEAKS (not even apps)... $3 for something like Barrel? Give me a break. QUOTE]

ZOMG THREE DOLLAS!!!!11
An order of McNuggets it soooo much more worth it!

Well to be honest I think you both are right...

3$ isn't that much and it is always better than that order of McNuggets (too much fats). However I think that $3 tweak is always too much to only change "graphical" aspects of your iPhone (it is a bit capricious)..

EDIT: @Anarchy23 It is not working for me too and I didn't even changed a thing (just updated aloud).

[skrApy]

PasswordPilot: Great Tool and its for free thx..
CallBar: I think 4$ is realy to much for this tool...

[njosnavelin]

Why is it when I just looked for Zepher in Cydia, it cost 4.99 , but this article states 2.99? Great research buddy.

Zephyr was quite a heavily anticipated tweak at the time of its release and its 2.99 price was well known. I believe chpwn only upped the price within the last month (with the 1.3 update) but price changes are not usually relayed to existing customers (à la the Appstore). No need to be a jerk, buddy. Bouchard has written a great article here.

[vinaygoel2000]

I think NCSettings should be one and Activator at number 2.

[Mc-Lovin_341]

Shame the Tetherme doesn't yet work on ipad 2 for use with Bluetooth 3/

[rkswat]

*SIGH* I remember the good old days before devs started charging stupid amounts for mediocre TWEAKS (not even apps)... $3 for something like Barrel? Give me a break.

Don't like don't buy.... your made up problem is solved.

[Mc-Lovin_341]

I think NCSettings should be one and Activator at number 2.

I don't class Activator as a great tweak to be listed as its just essential to a lot of apps, but would be nothing by itself.

[somethingblue]

the jailbreak apps are definitely overpriced. I'm not trying to say I undervalue the programmer's efforts, but if these apps were available legitimately via the app store, you would never get more than .99 for most of these apps (especially Barrel, Callbar, etc.).

Full-blown apps in the app store with mass amounts of functionality by indie developers have been made free, but small tweaks through cydia cost as much as 4 regular full applications. It's kind of ridiculous when you look at it that way. If a programmer wants to make money, perhaps they should look into building a suite of tweaks. There is no reason an app from Cydia's store can't feature the functionality of Barrel, Callbar, Aloud, iFile, etc. for $10. You'd get a huge user-base because it's all in one tidy app that people don't have to go out in search of.