'Powerguard' Keeps People From Using Your Power Off Slider

[Anthony Bouchard]

Sometimes we don’t like people turning off our iOS devices on us. Powerguard is a new jailbreak tweak by iOS developer Gil Ben-Moshe that will help keep people from using your ‘slide to power off’ slider, which is invoked anywhere by holding down the power button for approximately 3 seconds.

Powerguard helps defend against having your device turned off by requiring a password to use the ‘slide to power off’ slider. Powerguard will add an application to your home screen so that you can configure your own password. By default, the password is “password,” but you can change it to almost anything you want. You will also find a switch in the application for enabling and disabling the tweak. The application where you assign your password is very simple, straightforward, and shown below:



There are a good handful of reasons that we wouldn’t want people turning our iOS devices off. For one, sometimes we end up with a tethered jailbreak and don’t want to go through the inconvenience of having to tether up to a PC or Mac and running redsn0w to boot up. Another legitimate reason could be that our impatience makes us not desire sitting there and watching an Apple logo for nearly a minute while we wait for the device to power back on.

While the tweak does a good job of protecting the ‘slide to power off’ slider, it doesn’t necessarily keep the device from being powered down. Alternatives, like holding both the home and power button for 10 full seconds, will get around Powerguard and ultimately defeat the purpose of it. Since the 'hard restart,' as some call it, is so commonly known, Powerguard might just not be enough to keep people from turning your device off.

You will find Powerguard in Cydia from the BigBoss repository for 99¢, but the current version has its settings configured from the Settings application. A future version will bring you the application on the home screen with an easier-to-follow GUI (graphical user interface).

Name: Powerguard
Price: 99¢
Version: 0.0.1-38
Repo: BigBoss
Developer: Gil Ben-Moshe
Editor's Rating:  2/5

Sources: Cydia

[soccer22champ]

I've never had someone turn my phone off, didn't know it was that big of a problem that you needed to spend a $1 to prevent.

[guitarplaya7777]

I've never had someone turn my phone off, didn't know it was that big of a problem that you needed to spend a $1 to prevent.

I thought of this a few weeks ago, but i am not a developer. I would use it for the sole reason of keeping Find My iPhone on. I know that you can just hard reset, but not everyone that steals an iPhone knows that.

[lucca567]

If my phone gets stolen, the "hard restart" will reboot the phone immediately, thus switching back on "Find My iPhone". This way the thief can never turn off the phone and since I have a passcode he can't switch on airplane mode or sync with iTunes. Potential thieves=pwned.

[KraXik]

If my phone gets stolen, the "hard restart" will reboot the phone immediately, thus switching back on "Find My iPhone". This way the thief can never turn off the phone and since I have a passcode he can't switch on airplane mode or sync with iTunes. Potential thieves=pwned.

I would put it into DFU. The use iTunes to wipe the phone and install from fresh. Your phone = pwned.

[VerizonIphone4_help]

better free tweaks out there i use "NoPowerDown" It completely removes the power slider (i use activator action to power down on the VERY rare occasion that I need to). I do this strictly to make the average iPhone theft confused.

imagine them holding the power button and nothing popping up, priceless - meanwhile i am taking pictures of them and tracking their location. with cylay

[Sevael]

Haven't used the tweak (not even willing to pay a buck for it) but it kind of seems like a savvy person could simply click on the (aptly named) icon and disable the thing, then power down your device anyway. Kind of pointless, isn't it?

Between that and the fact that the hard reset still works, this is more of a novelty. I can't imagine that many people's iPhones are grabbed by people who know only about the regular reset and aren't willing to do some poking to get it shut down if that's what they really want to do.

The only people I could see wanting to shut down your phone are thieves trying to steal it and block you from tracking it via GPS (Find My iPhone). If somebody has the balls to steal your phone and knows about Find My iPhone and how to shut the phone down, chances are this tweak isn't going to stop them.

It's just way too easy to get around this tweak to make it useful. I wouldn't even bother installing it if it were free.

[decoy88]

the worst thing is, technically ALL phones can be tracked as long as the battery is inside the device, which you think would be a plus owning an Apple phone (can't remove the battery)

but authorities would only use that technology if say they were tryna find a murderer, not just your everyday petty phone thief. A shame really

[lucca567]

I would put it into DFU. The use iTunes to wipe the phone and install from fresh. Your phone = pwned.

Smart man!

[Anthony Bouchard]

the worst thing is, technically ALL phones can be tracked as long as the battery is inside the device, which you think would be a plus owning an Apple phone (can't remove the battery)

but authorities would only use that technology if say they were tryna find a murderer, not just your everyday petty phone thief. A shame really

I like that TV show 'Person of Interest.' The criminals usually dump their phones in a bucket of water to avoid being tracked.

Must be expensive getting a new phone all the time living that kind of life, no?