Our regular readers will remember that just over a week ago we brought a beautiful iOS 8 concept video to your attention. The Mission Control concept was designed to build on the work that has already been implemented in iOS 7 by taking things a little further to mix the Control Center and multitasking facilities together. The implementation of the concept definitely managed to strike a chord with us, and as you know, the jailbreak community never seems to waste any time in snapping up a good idea and making it a reality. It looks like Mission Control has been rebranded as Vertex and will be heading to a Cydia based repository near you in the near future.
The iOS 7 lock screen clock is elegant, minimal, and does exactly what it needs to, and while the smaller status bar clock will serve you well throughout the rest of iOS, it is, in every sense of the phrase, not really much to look at. A neat little iWidgets-based tweak called SevenClock brings the famed lock screen clock to the home screen, and if you're a fan of minimalism as we are, this tweak will greatly accentuate the look you're striving for.
The Touch ID feature of the iPhone 5s has proved hugely successful so far. Sure, the introduction of the gold model of Apple's latest and greatest probably upstaged the new fingerprint sensor, but in offering better security while also adding to the perceived "cool" factor of the iconic handset, Touch ID has certainly gone down well. According to the guys over at AppleInsider, the Cupertino company is set to step up the feature's functionality by means of a forthcoming software update, which will render Touch ID better able to recognize fingerprints whilst also taking care of a "fade" issue that has hit some users.
The first wave of MFi (Made For iPhone) accessories may not win awards for design innovation or aesthetic beauty, but they did manage to highlight the power of what is possible with mobile gaming, and draw serious attention to Apple's Game Controller APIs that launched as part of iOS 7. MOGA, the company behind the MOGA Ace Power iOS 7 controller, has taken on-board the lessons learnt from the initial launch and have gone back to the drawing board to build their next MFi product, as shown in the company's official teaser image below.
iOS has been designed by Apple to be as visually appealing as possible to the widest audience. Granted, not everyone is going to agree with the overall look and feel of a piece of software, but the challenge for a company like Apple is to come up with a visual layout that captures the imagination of as many users as possible. For those who don't agree with that artistic vision, and who are jailbroken, there is always the option to theme the device and change the firmware's appearance. And now there is an option for iOS 7 users to change the color of the displayed keyboard on a jailbroken device, thanks to the ColorY0urBoard tweak.
The App Store is certainly not short of to-do apps, which aim to make the daily grind a little bit easier by allowing you to organize and manage your life in concise, digital fashion. Clear, a beautifully simple to-do app for iPhone and iPad, has just gone free for one day only, and if you're looking for an elegant, functional app to help you keep on top of things, you'll definitely want to check it out.
Even in the midst of Mobile World Congress, Apple has managed to end up grabbing headlines after an analyst claimed that the company's iPhone 6 will be available sooner than expected. In fact, according to Mizuho Securities analyst Abhey Lamba, the highly anticipated new iPhone could be on stores as early as July, months before the usual September release timeframe that Apple has used in the past.
A number of developers have already updated their tweaks and themes for iOS 7, while others are still frantically working on getting their masterpiece in front of the masses. The Athena package by Vatsal Manot was often relied on by pre-iOS 7 users to apply a little flair and style to the device without the need for large WinterBoard theme installations . It may have taken a while, but Manot has rewritten his package from the ground up to be fully compatible with iOS 7 and released it as a new tweak known as Athena 2.
Cydia is populated with tweaks and extensions that enhance the overall experience of iOS. One of the latest packages to have a stab at improving iOS goes by the name of TouchBar and is a small utility that lets users quickly toggle system settings on and off directly from the status bar of the installed device.
A3Tweaks, the developers behind popular tweaks such as Auxo and AltKeyboard, have announced via Twitter that they will once again be taking the jailbreak world by storm "within the next month". The tweet, stipulates that the second major iteration of Auxo, AltKeyboard 2 as well as two additional packages will land on Cydia's repositories in the coming month.
