Enable the Nitro JavaScript Engine in Third Party Apps With 'Nitrous'

[Anthony Bouchard]

In case you have been left out in the dark, Mobile Safari gained the Nitro JavaScript engine in iOS 4.3. The Nitro JavaScript engine in iOS 4.3 made Mobile Safari capable of loading JavaScript up to two times faster than Mobile Safari in iOS 4.2.1 could. One of the biggest beefs with third party Web browsers from Apple's App Store is that they lack this Nitro JavaScript engine because Apple doesn't allow the developers to tap into it.

If you’re a hardcore fan of iOS applications such as Facebook or Google Chrome, maybe it’s time you get some Nitro JavaScript love added into the mix to help increase your speed. A new jailbreak tweak called Nitrous by iOS developer Joe Jordan gives third party applications access to Apple’s Nitro JavaScript engine by adding the dynamic code-signing entitlement to third party applications.

Displayed above is a screenshot of the jailbreak tweak’s preferences pane, which can be found in the Settings application just after you install the tweak from Cydia. From the preferences pane, you can enable all of the third party applications you want to take advantage of the Nitro JavaScript engine. Turning them back off again will disable the Nitro JavaScript engine for the applications you turn off.



As shown above, the jailbreak tweak does increase your speeds by quite a good amount. The browser used in the example is Google Chrome for iOS and before installing the tweak, Google Chrome scored 11614.3 milliseconds in the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark test. After installing the tweak, the test benchmarked 3587.4 milliseconds, which is a substantial drop in loading time.

If you wouldn’t mind the extra performance boost that might help you load pages a second or two faster in third-party applications than the other guy, then you can grab Nitrous from the Cydia store right now for just 99¢.

Name: Nitrous
Price: 99¢
Version: 1.0-1
Requirements: iOS 5
Repo: BigBoss
Developer: Joe Jordan
Editor's Rating:  4/5

Sources: Cydia

[andrewe13]

Downloading now

[jamesgunaca]

Immediate purchase.

[[email protected]]

Just bought this.... AMAZING. Best tweak of the month. All my apps I need to run fast...now do. My 4S just became 4SS. Super sport iphone

[andrewe13]

Immediate purchase.

Wish I could use it... Everytime I go into the settings panel it says "LOADING" and then the springboard crashes, restarts into safe mode, and then restarts back to normal. 2 times now. Anyone having this problem??

running ios 5.0.1 9A406 iPhone 4S

[Anthony Bouchard]

Wish I could use it... Everytime I go into the settings panel it says "LOADING" and then the springboard crashes, restarts into safe mode, and then restarts back to normal. 2 times now. Anyone having this problem??

running ios 5.0.1 9A406 iPhone 4S

Upgrade to iOS 5.1.1 with the untethered jailbreak.

[MXCO]

Will this tweak make YouTube video on the modmyi app actually work? Hmmm...

[bobohwk2]

Works great! I notice a speed boost already. I have it set for Chrome, TweetBot, ModMyi, Blackboard Learning, and Facebook. Worth the purchase.

[gonkowonko]

Excellent mod, Facebook app actually seems to work now on my ip4

[lastdance]

Wish I could use it... Everytime I go into the settings panel it says "LOADING" and then the springboard crashes, restarts into safe mode, and then restarts back to normal. 2 times now. Anyone having this problem??

running ios 5.0.1 9A406 iPhone 4S

I have the same problem.

ios 5.0.1 9A405 iPhone 4

[yotaiji012]

Why cant I find it in cydia? This is the case for other mentioned apps on modmyi

[DaFatMack]

Now my Iphone 4 feels like a 4s :-)

[joedj]

I believe I have fixed this issue. I hope to get the update published soon, but if you'd like to try it before that you can grab it from my beta repository.

The repo is: joedj's beta repo

The (hopefully) fixed version is 1.0-4.

Sorry for the inconvenience, and the poor user experience.

I am very interested to know whether this fix works for you, especially if it does not.

[lastdance]

Upgrade to iOS 5.1.1 with the untethered jailbreak.

The requirement is iOS5 and up.

[baRRy boRRis]

Chrome here I come!

For everyone saying that their i4 feels like an i4S, this only makes 3rd party and in-app browsers faster, not the entire system. That 3D game that sort of lags will still sort of lag...

[Maiknycer]

iPhone 4 iOS 5.1.1
And it Crashes btw by loading it crashes

[nicoflorin]

Upgrade to iOS 5.1.1 with the untethered jailbreak.

i have the same problem, but i habe iOS 5.1.1 untethered JB. When i go to the settings of Nitrous Springboard crashes. Any Ideas?

[Maiknycer]

Yep. Whats that

[mattoligy]

Not sure what all the hypes about, just bought this tweak and in terms of user experience it barely makes a difference! Websites still load slow and scrolling is still jerky, on the iPad 3 too... It's all well and good showing us a bunch of numbers and then people are like OMG those Numbers look amaaaaaazing, well in reality when actually using a website via a 3rd party app, Safari still absolutely wins hands down! I'm not budging from it!

Not worth paying for!

[Wiiman20]

It works well on my iPod Touch 4 but it crashes springboard on my New iPad... Fix?