Jailbreaking

Checking current weather conditions from the lock screen can be a one step process with Notification Center properly configured. Swiping down from the top of the display will show current conditions and describe the high and low temperatures in the Today view. What if there was a way to display this information directly in the lock screen?

Those with jailbroken devices can do just that with Forecast. The tweak has been updated for iOS 7 to completely integrate local conditions and forecast information from the stock Weather app onto the lock screen. Once installed, the unlock slider disappears and current conditions with high and low temperatures are displayed in the lower left corner of the lock screen.

The iOS signal strength meters for cellular and Wi-Fi signal strength have never been very precise. Just take a look at the Wi-Fi indicator - three curved bars. This can basically tell you good, ok, bad or non-existent. The actual range for Wi-Fi signal strength deserves more specificity than just three levels, the same goes for cellular signal strength. If you want a more precise indicator for your Wi-Fi and cellular signal strength, you can download the jailbreak tweaks Numeric GSM Indicator and Numeric WiFi Indicator from Cydia.

Numeric GSM Indicator will change the graphical cellular strength indicator into an RSSI indicator. RSSI (received signal strength indication) is the standard metric used by the telecommunications industry to measure power in a received radio signal (measured in decibels). In fact, if you put your iPhone into field test mode you will

Looking to spruce up the default iOS 7 color palette? Jailbreakers can grab Fancy for $0.99 and do just that. Customizations to global tint or individual components of iOS can be implemented directly in the settings, once Fancy is installed from Cydia. Custom colors include Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Light Blue and Purple.

Besides the Keyboard, other areas of iOS that can be tinted with a new color include Banners, Notification Center, Control Center, Dock, HUDs (such as Ringer shown below), Spotlight, and Assistant (Siri). Colors are applied to iOS 7 immediately, with no respring required once the new configuration is selected under Settings -> Fancy.

Using Mobile Safari on iOS 7 means up to 24 browser tabs can be left open. While this can be great for going back to frequently used web pages, it can also get messy fast. There is a trick using Private browsing mode, which closes all browser tabs in one shot.

Those with jailbroken devices can install the free CloseAll tweak for a more efficient solution to the problem. Once installed, there are no settings to configure. Simply pull up the 3D browser tab view and long press a black X in the upper left corner of any tab.

Fans of the Chrome web browser can avoid Safari on the iPhone with a simple jailbreak tweak named Open in Chrome. Once installed, a toggle in Settings will enable or disable the tweak. Using Open in Chrome results in Google's browser acting as the default across iOS 7.

This means links in notes, messages, email and other apps will always open in Chrome. Even links from Siri or home screen Bookmarks will use Chrome to display web pages. Of course, Chrome is required for the tweak to work properly. Without Chrome installed, the tweak does nothing and Safari opens like normal.