iPhone Tweaks

Spotlight on Apple mobile devices received a major upgrade with the launch of iOS 9. As usual, users can swipe down on the home screen to invoke Spotlight. With iOS 9 installed, a more detailed search screen can be displayed be swiping left to right. Spotlight provides everything from Siri app suggestions to news and specific search results by category, such as nearby food and shopping. Wouldn't it be great to have access to Spotlight from anywhere in iOS 9?

One of the minor inconveniences when using iOS devices involves rotation lock. For some users, there are situations when locking the orientation is preferred. The problem happens when switching to another app that requires the opposite orientation. For example, switching from reading an iBook in bed (portrait) to viewing a movie (landscape). To turn off rotation lock, the Control Center must be toggled every time.

Now jailbroken users on iOS 9 can completely reorganize the Notification Center with the tweak NotificationCards. Once installed, this mod groups all notifications into individual app cards for easy viewing. All of the notifications for each app can be dismissed immediately by swiping on the card. There are also other ways to interact with app cards, and a variety of customizations in the settings.

One of the more interesting features introduced with OS X Yosemite darkens the status bar and dock. This dark mode is simple enough to toggle in System Preferences, lending app menus across the board a reversed look. With white text and dark backgrounds, dark mode is excellent for working at night, or anytime. Now with the jailbreak tweak Nightmode9, a similar look can be toggled system-wide on iOS devices using an Activator action.

Since the addition of 3D Touch to the iPhone 6s, iOS users have enjoyed more ways to interact with their devices. App icons are no different, with many supporting quick actions directly from the home screen. Now that iOS 9 has been jailbroken, developers are setting their sights on expanding the capabilities of 3D Touch. The tweak Appendix seeks to add more functionality to app folders, by making it possible to open apps directly by invoking 3D Touch.