Tag Archives: lock screen

Get The Flat iOS 7 Look On iOS 6 Lock Screen With This Theme

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After all the mockups and speculation, when it was finally released, iOS 7 turned out to be rather close to what everyone was expecting after the “black, white and flat” revelation. There has been no shortage of criticism on the new iOS 7 design, and there are already some rumors suggesting that Apple might consider reverting back to a more conventional look before the final release this fall. Whether the OS remains flat or not, you can't deny that there are parts of the update that look good enough to eat. Very few people have criticized the lock screen, for instance, since it offers an exciting new UI along with features like support for NC and dynamic wallpapers. We are sure there will soon be tweaks that bring the update's lock screen features to older versions of iOS, but if you are just interested in looks, iOS 7 Lockscreen Theme is a pretty decent Winterboard package for that purpose. Read More

Get A Minimal, Two-Way Unlock Slider On iPhone Lock Screen With FXOSLock

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Anyone who is really into UI customization and wants to get the most out of a jailbroken iPhone is likely to appreciate Cydia tweaks like SliderCustomizer and Axis, since they focus on very particular parts of iOS. This is why such tweaks have fared pretty well in the Cydia store. FXOSLock is the latest alternative to the stock unlock slider you get in iOS. The tweak doesn't just make minor changes to the slider; it revamps the way it works, and gives it a completely new look. The minimalists among us are also sure to appreciate FXOSLock, since the slider it offers doesn't occupy the entire bottom half of your device’s lock screen. Despite that, no existing feature is taken away by FXOSLock, and you can use the tweak’s unlocking slider to unlock your device or launch the camera straight away. Read More

Get Highly Customizable Grabber-Like App Shortcuts On iOS Lock Screen With Axis

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Lock screen launchers for iOS are pretty popular among the Cydia community these days, but with tweaks like Atom, there is always the possibility of inadvertently launching apps due to lack of proper preventive measures. To avoid this, a lot of people prefer Grabby - the popular tweak that adds four camera grabber-like app shortcuts to the lock screen. While Grabby is great, there are a few areas where it might have been a little better, or at least that is what trying out Axis has made us realize. Axis is pretty similar to Grabby, but offers a ton of customization options that aren't there in any of its competitors. To make the shortcuts look good, there are plenty of icon choices available for each shortcut. You can pin any app that is installed on your iDevice, and most of the popular ones have custom icons of their own to help users spot them at one quick glance. Axis also lets you pin one app more than Grabby to the lock screen, which offers four slots. Read More

Get System Toggles Under iPhone Lock Screen Slider With LockBar Settings

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More and more Cydia developers have recently started adopting the policy of releasing a beta version of their upcoming tweak in the form of DEB files before making it available as a release on the Cydia store. A few days back, MessageBox took that route, and now, LockBar Settings is available for manual download as well. We have to admit that LockBar isn't as highly anticipated as MessageBox was, but the features it offers can really become an essential part of your daily routine. With LockBar Settings, iOS users get to place four of their most frequently needed system toggles on their device’s lock screen. Much like LockscreenToggles, the new controls added to the lock screen by LockBar only become visible when you invoke them. In fact, it is even possible to require an extra tap for their actions to ensure that a toggle is never hit accidentally. Read More

Get Easy Access To System Toggles On iPhone Lock Screen

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If Infinity Blade (or any other game, for that matter) has taught us one thing, it is that you cannot stay on top without being occasionally challenged. SBSettings has been the king of Cydia tweaks for a long time, and not many alternatives have come even close to garnering the same following as it enjoys. The only criticism that you can direct at SBSettings is that it offers too many options, including some you are never likely to need. Also, the lock screen integration of the tweak isn’t too good, and the screen turns off even if you are going through the toggles listed in the dropdown window. Flusterless and similar tweaks cannot be considered alternatives of SBSettings by any stretch of imagination, since they are too limited in terms of features. LockscreenToggles, however, might be the first Cydia tweak in a long time that can make you leave SBSettings. The tweak doesn’t have as much toggles and customization options as SBSettings, but that also means you don’t have to go through endless manual configuration to get started. Read More

Atom Adds A Sleek Custom App Launcher To The iPhone Lock Screen

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All it takes is a single app or tweak to bring a certain genre back in vogue. Prior to the release of JellyLock, there hadn’t been a similar tweak released in the Cydia store for a long time, but now we have an even newer way of adding useful app shortcuts to the iOS lock screen. atom lets you pin six apps to the lock screen, and to make sure you don’t end up launching them by mistake, it uses a clever dragging gesture to get to the shortcuts. To make the unlocking mechanism conforms to the rest of the tweak, atom adds the unlock shortcut in the middle of the app icons, which looks pretty neat. atom might not have as many customizing options as ICSLock Pro, but its default look is good enough to keep most users satisfied. Read More

Get Android Jelly Bean-Style Lock Screen On iPhone With JellyLock

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Imitation really is the best form of flattery, a lot of iOS users were quite flattered a few days back when Espier Screen Locker was released to replicate the iPhone lock screen on Android devices. Of course, we have seen similar apps and tweaks for iOS as well, like the previously covered ICSLock Pro. ICS is not the Android's latest version though, and all the newest devices come with Jelly Bean. So, it was just a matter of time before someone ported a few features of JB to jailbroken iOS devices. JellyLock is a new Cydia tweak that lets you enjoy a Jelly Bean-style lock screen on your iDevice. Those of you who aren't aware of the features of the JB lock screen can read our detailed post on the subject. Basically, you get to have a new kind of camera grabber and unlock slider on the lock screen that's in form of a ring. In addition, users can also place up to three app shortcuts of their choice alongside the camera shortcut - a feature found in several custom Jelly Bean-based Android ROMs. Read More

Customize iOS Lock Screen Slider & Disable “Slide To Reply / View”

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Although there have been some really comprehensive Cydia tweaks (like SliderWidth and SlideToMod) for letting users change the basic properties of the iOS lock screen, there are a few features that are just so deeply ingrained into iPhone’s operating system that no one has ever given much thought to customizing them. You can easily change the interface of your device’s lock screen if you are a Winterboard user. Other elements can be customized using some tweaks available in the jailbreak store. There is one thing, however, that has annoyed a lot of users, with no way of bypassing it, until yesterday. Whenever you get a new notification on the iPhone lock screen, using the unlock slider immediately opens the app to which the notification belongs. Some of you might like this feature, but a lot of users aren't too fond of this feature, and instead make the device sleep and then wake it up again in order to bypass it. Though that in itself is an inconvenience. SliderCustomizer is a new tweak that not only addresses this issue, but also offers some pretty decent customization options for the iOS lock screen. Read More

Grabby Adds Four Camera Grabber-Like Custom App Shortcuts To iOS Lock Screen

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No matter how many apps you have installed on your iPhone, the Spotlight search area can always help you in getting to the desired app without much fuss. iOS also has folders and a dock to help users keep their SpringBoard organized. Despite all that, it has to be admitted that the most easily accessible part of iOS is its lock screen. Since your device’s camera is often needed in a hurry, the presence of camera grabber on the lock screen in quite important. Won’t it be nice though, if there was some equally secure way of launching other apps from the lock screen as well? In the past, we have seen tweaks like AnyLock, which allows users to place widgets and app shortcuts on the lock screen. Another similar tweak goes by the name of LockLauncher. The newly released Grabby, however, takes a much less-exotic approach to attain the same end result. With Grabby, users can get four grabbers on the lock screen, and set each of them to launch the apps of their choice. Read More

Select Songs To Play Right From The iPhone Lock Screen With Pluck

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Remember Tempus, the Cydia tweak that turns the iOS lock screen into a fully featured music player? Tweaks of this kind might appeal to some users, but others might label them pointless since you are losing the basic purpose of lock screen by adding too many controls to it. On the other hand, you have options like LSMusicGestures, which doesn’t add any visible buttons the lock screen, but lets you control playback using gestures. Pluck is a new tweak that is even simpler than LSMusicGestures, and it addresses an issue that we are sure most iOS users have faced at one time or another. Pluck adds a small button to the lock screen playback controls that can be used to access the songs and playlists present in the device’s music library. This means you can start listening to the song of your choice without even unlocking the screen. Read More

How To Hide Current Song’s Album Art & Info From iPhone Lock Screen

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Headphones were invented to let people listen to music without disturbing everyone in their vicinity. Another purpose of these little accessories is to provide you with some privacy while you are listening to songs in a crowded environment. If you own an iOS device, or any other smartphone for that matter, this privacy is violated to some extent due to the display of album art on your lock screen. We have to admit that the presence of the current song's information and album art on the lock screen is useful in most scenarios, but there are some tracks that you never want anyone to discover in your iPod. For such songs, the new Secret "Now Playing" (yes, it has quotation marks in its name) tweak is perfect. The tweak makes sure that users get to keep the control of their lock screen completely in their own hands, even when listening to a song. You can use Secret “Now Playing” to hide album art, artist name, album, and other information associated with the song from your iPhone’s lock screen. Read More

Customize iPhone Lock Screen & Add Live Widgets To It With LockHTML2

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Widgets are certainly gaining popularity among iOS users. The Cydia store has a nice collection of interesting widgets for the Notification Center and SpringBoard. If you are a fan of making the lock screen more useful, there are tweaks like Dashboard X and LockHTML. Both of these tweaks have their shortcomings though; Dashboard X is a bit too complicated if you just want a simple widget on your iPhone’s lock screen, while LockHTML makes users do a lot of work in order to get the widgets configured properly. Fortunatel, the developer behind LockHTML has revamped the tweak, adding support for iOS 6 in the process. With LockHTML2, the wallpaper can be kept active in the widget’s background without having to go through a lot of hassle. The list of its customization options has lengthened considerably as well, making the tweak a lock screen customizer as well as a platform for widgets. Read More

Get Lock Screen Widgets & Dynamic Wallpapers On Windows Phone 8

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Lock screen widgets were available only for developer-unlocked devices in the days of WP7, but before releasing Windows Phone 8, Microsoft realized the true potential of an information-rich lock screen. WP8 supports automatically changing lock screen backgrounds, and widgets that shows real-time data. While there are a few very good apps that make your lock screen dynamic, not much work has been done on the widgets front. As has often been the case, the famed Windows Phone developer Jaxbot has come to the rescue. His newly released Lock Widgets app lets you set up a dynamic lock screen, and also offers real-time widgets for battery status and weather information. Thanks to this great app, users can set up dynamic wallpapers by using Bing or NASA images as sources. If you want to use the app only for its widgets, that can be done too. Read More

LiveWire Adds A Cool New Unlock Animation To The iPhone Lock Screen

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In the past, I have been an avid user of both PaperLock and Unlockize, but within a few weeks, the novelty factor wore off and I came back to the stock iOS lock screen. Another thing that contributed towards my getting bored of these tweaks was the lack of really unique animations. On that front, the newly released LiveWire should struggle (at least in theory) since it only offers one animation, but after using it, I can safely say that the tweak is sure to reside in my iPhone for the next few days at least. The unlocking animation offered by LiveWire is very simple, and does not cause any lag. After some time, you might even forget that it is not a default part of your iDevice. The tweak is extremely simple, requires no configuration and looks awesome in action. Read More

Add A Stopwatch To The iPhone Lock Screen With Stoppur

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Whenever you have to use the stopwatch available in your iPhone, there is a possibility that you will forget all about it once it goes to the background and you start using another app. This is because for some inexplicable reason, iOS does not show any notifications or even an icon badge when the stopwatch is in operation. Stoppur solves this problem quite efficiently. Recently released in the Cydia store, this tweak does something even more useful than adding a badge to the Clock app; it adds the entire stopwatch display to your device’s lock screen. Of course there is no way of controlling the timer without launching the Clock app, but having the continuously updating time display right on your lock screen can certainly come in handy in a lot of situations. Read More

Completely Control Pandora Playback From iPhone Lock Screen With ThumbsUp

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Pandora users, rejoice! What the famous service hasn't been able to do for its iPhone app has been accomplished by a third-party developer and released at the Cydia store. Pandora for iOS has always - rather annoyingly - lacked lock screen controls. You can keep listening to music from Pandora while using other apps or even when on the lock screen, but you have to launch Pandora itself every time you need to skip a track, add it to your bookmarks or give it a thumbs up. A lot of people have been demanding support for lock screen controls and now you can have them, thanks to a Cydia tweak by the name of ThumbsUp. The tweak lets you take full control of Pandora playback without ever having to open the app again and again. The buttons added to the lock screen are pretty neat, and look like they have been added to your iPhone by the Pandora client itself. Read More

Peekly Is A Lock Screen Theme For iPhone With Weather & Live Feeds

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We rarely cover iOS themes, but Peekly is anything but just just another Winterboard package. The theme really transforms your iPhone’s lock screen into something completely different, and comes with a touch of usefulness as well. Peekly doesn’t mess with every area of iOS, and sticks to changing just the lock screen. It has weather information, a beautiful clock, and the ability to display your Twitter or RSS feeds. You have to manually do some work to get Peekly up and running on your jailbroken phone, but the level of customization the theme offers makes the effort completely worthwhile. Read More

Twitter For Windows Phone Gets New UI, Lock Screen Notifications & An Improved Live Tile

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It might have taken longer than expected, but Microsoft’s promise of bringing better apps to Windows Phone 8 is finally coming true. After the WhatsApp overhaul last week, Twitter has received a significant update as well. Until now, Twitter’s Windows Phone client resembled the service’s web version rather than its smartphone counterpart, but finally the situation has been rectified, with the new update bringing a tabbed interface and better notification support. The ‘Connect’ and ‘Discover’ tabs have finally been added to the app. You can also configure lock screen notifications on WP8 devices quite easily. No Windows Phone app update is complete unless it improves the live tile, and Twitter is no exception. The app now supports a double-sided tile that shows alerts for mentions and direct messages. Read More

Customize Date & Time Displayed On Windows 8 & RT Lock Screen

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If you frequently change the Lock Screen background on Windows 8 or RT, you'll probably love spending time customizing it further as well. Lock Screen is a new feature in Microsoft’s latest OS that shows off your favorite image when your Windows 8 PC or Windows RT tablet screen is locked. The Lock Screen does more than just displaying the wallpaper though, and is home to some miniscule widgets like Wi-Fi signal, battery, email notifications and a clock with date display, in addition to time. Windows doesn’t offer a way to customize the clock widget however, leaving you stuck with the stock date and time format. Thanks to Vishal at AskVG, you can now customize the clock widget’s time and date format and language by modifying a registry key. Read More

Use Any USB Drive As A Key To Lock Or Unlock Your Mac’s Screen

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We’ve covered quite a few apps for locking your Mac screen. What OS X and most screen locking apps for OS X all have in common is the use of a text password for security. And then there are some apps that allow you to lock/unlock your screen by drawing a pattern across a grid, or unlocking the screen when a particular Bluetooth device is in range. USB Screen Lock is a Mac app worth $0.99 that takes a different approach to locking and unlocking your Mac; it uses a USB flash drive as a key to lock and unlock your screen. Removing or ejecting the drive will instantly lock your Mac. The app also lets you add an additional layer of security by setting a password. To unlock your Mac, you must insert the USB and then enter the password (if configured) to get to your desktop. Read More