Submitted by Bob Bhatnagar on
One of the highlights of the iPhone design has always been the one and only physical button on the front of the device, the home button. Even though it's easy to use, double or triple clicking the home button is a lot different than using gestures. iPad users have been able to take advantage of multi-finger gestures to substitute for the home button already.
With the jailbreak tweak Zephyr from developer Chpwn, iPhone users can take advantage of these gestures and more. The smaller screen can make it more difficult to use these three and four-finger gestures. The great thing about Zephyr is the additional Swipe up from Bottom and Swipe from Left and Right gestures that improve multitasking and reduce home button use.
Instead of having to double-click the home button, you can simply swipe up from the bottom of the home screen to bring up the multitasking app switcher. In a similar fashion, you can swipe from the left or right of the screen while in an app to cycle between running apps. The area of the screen that will accept a right or left swipe can be changed based on your preferences, and to prevent interference with certain in-app gestures.
Once Zephyr is installed and configured in the Settings, there's even less reason to press the home button. You can exit apps and return to the home screen by swiping up from the bottom in any app. Of course, this can be disabled for specific apps that won't work with this behavior. Zephyr is also great for iPhone owners who are having problems with a non-responsive home button. Why press the physical button if you can just swipe away?
To enable these additional gestures, jailbreak your iOS device with evasi0n then get Zephyr from the BigBoss repo on Cydia for $4.99.