Upcoming Tweak 'PowerOptionsPro' Makes the Power Menu Even Better

[Anthony Bouchard]

In Cydia’s ModMyi repository right now is a free jailbreak tweak called PowerOptions. It makes the power menu even more intuitive by adding more features.

Coming in the near future is a paid version of the tweak – PowerOptionsPro that adds the same functionality as PowerOptions; however, it will include even more functionality than the free counterpart. The tweak is made by the same developer, known as FreeApple.

Shown above is the PowerOptionsPro interface. The PowerOptionsPro interface includes many useful buttons such as rebooting, respringing, shutting down, locking the device, showing an information panel, closing out of all backgrounded applications, and clearing your caches. Also interesting, the PowerOptionsPro interface can be invoked one of two ways – holding down on the power button the same way you would to bring up the power down slider, or with an Activator action of your choice.



PowerOptionsPro comes with a preferences pane in the Settings application where you can enable and disable the buttons you will and will not use for the tweak. For some, locking the device with a button from this interface may not be as convenient as locking the device with the sleep button, so there is the option to disable that button, as well as the rest, from appearing on the interface when you invoke it.

Below choosing the buttons that you want to enable, you can select the Activator action you would like to use for the tweak. If you do not select an Activator action, the tweak’s interface can only be invoked by holding down on the sleep button at the top of the device.

Below the Activator action is the aforementioned sleep button alternative. You can opt to hold down the sleep button for however long you wish – the default 3 seconds, or picking 2 or 1 second instead, to speed things up a little bit. When you choose to use this method, the default slide to power off slider will not appear anymore and PowerOptionsPro’s interface will appear instead. This isn’t really a problem since PowerOptionsPro can do everything (and more) that the slide to power off slider can do.

Once you get past the choices for opening the tweak, you can choose to enable and disable animations and sounds. The sounds are just very simple, quiet noises that accompany launching and closing the PowerOptionsPro’s interface. The animations are what will appear when you launch and close it as well. You have the ability to pick between the following animations:

• Default (Bottom to Top)
• Top to Bottom
• Left to Right
• Right to Left

Looking more at the actual functionality of the tweak, most of the buttons are pretty straightforward at what they do. The two buttons that we felt needed the most clarification are the clear cache and information panel buttons, so we have included screenshot examples for those below:



The clear cache function (shown on the left above) opens a pop-up box with a spinner that will keep your screen busy until the device finishes clearing your device’s caches. Clearing the caches will speed up your device and keep unnecessary files from accumulating in bulk and wasting space.

The information panel (shown on the right above) shows an SBSettings-like information board that includes a ton of important information. The information it shows includes:

• Your device's name
• The type of device and the firmware version it is running
• Battery image indicator
• Battery percentage indicator
• Your Wi-Fi IP address
• The amount of storage the device has
• The amount of storage being used on the device
• The amount of free RAM (memory)
• The total amount of usable storage space
• The amount of currently free usable storage space

Also interesting is the animation that appears when you close all backgrounded applications. The stock App Switcher opens up and all of the applications just go ‘poof’ right before your eyes. Then the App Switcher closes automatically. Pretty cool!

The tweak is still currently in its beta stages; all screenshots above may not be 100% accurate with the final product. The good news is, the appearance of the tweak won’t be changing and it looks super slick. We are excited to see this tweak go live on the ModMyi repository for 99¢ some time in the near future, so keep your eyes peeled if interested!

[blkcadi]

Will have to give this a go when it's released, pretty cool tweak.

[subywrex]

Awesome!! Great job by a great guy!!

[Jahooba]

I like how it's stylized - I really, really don't like the default Apple interface. I guess it's incomplete, but I'd like to see all three windows styles matching

[MXCO]

Looks interesting but don't think I would use this as much.

[kalpesh78]

This surely is one useful addition to the phone. I just don't like the way it looks.

[radioBirdman]

I'd be interested to know which caches it clears. And/or if you can modify the list of caches (be it through the settings panel or through a plist file) to clear.
Looks great. Especially for a buck!

[Bender1031]

This is cool! Possibly a replacement for SBsettings?

[radioBirdman]

This is cool! Possibly a replacement for SBsettings?

The lack of toggles might not make it the best replacement for SBSettings

[thevmax]

RESPRING and REBOOT were not working through PowerOptions, but after I powered down and back up they became functional...?

[Bender1031]

The lack of toggles might not make it the best replacement for SBSettings

True, but what if the 'pro' version has toggle like buttons? That'd be cool