Accessible and Useful Jailbreak Tweaks List for iOS 7

By Robert A.M., 5 January, 2014

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Hi All, I thought it might be a good idea to compile a list of iOS 7 jailbreak tweaks which are accessible with VoiceOver and provide additional functionality and usability for visually impaired users. I will begin by sharing some of the tweaks I have installed on my iPhone 5s and iPad 4: Activator Applocker Bloard CleverPin FlipControlCenter combined with FlipLaunch iKeywi Nitrous NowNow Like I said, I have personally tested these tweaks, both on a 32 and on a 64 bit device. I strongly encourage you, my fellow Applevis jailbreakers, to expand this list by sharing the accessible and useful tweaks that you come across! Regards!

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By Musicruz on Friday, January 10, 2014 - 03:43

Active Access for Activator - It's only compatible for the 32bit devices as of todate. In addition, The screen curtain issue with this tweak has been miraculously fixed on iOS 7! For those of you who don't know what the twea is about, it basically allows you to change how to toggle the accessibility features such as Voice Over. Last app - Another add-on for Activator that will allow you to switch back and forth to the previous and current open app. Flex - This one provides you the ability to make your own tweak. there are also lots of tweaks you can download from the cloud where people share their own tweaks. Note: You cannot download any tweaks if you did not buy the tweak. Besides the aforementioned tweaks on the post, that's all I know so far.

By Andrew on Friday, January 10, 2014 - 03:43

Hello, Two more I have found to be accessible. ICleaner Pro and Browser Changer. One item I wanted the jailbreaking communities opinion on however. I have mentioned that I am having issues with activator and certain gestures. If I set a three finger pinch to simulate a press of the home button, it does not work with voiceover enabled. I have asked individuals to confirm this one for me, without any feedback. Can anyone confirm this for me? I know that the three finger pich does work without voiceover enabled, but it doesn't with voiceover enabled. This is true for others as well, but some like now-now and last app, setting them up with an activator action, work just fine. Any ideas as to why this is? I know that activator is still in beta, but why do some work and others do not? -Andrew-

Hi all. So far I have been using, Activator (of course!), Bloard, SwitchSpring (which let's you kill all apps and re-spring from the app switcher), NowNow combined with Googiri, and BioProtect. Actually I was surprised to see AppLocker in your list because I found that VoiceOver wouldn't read the list of apps in the settings for AppLocker, maybe it was something I did though. Has anyone tried any Touch ID tweaks? I like to use it to simulate a press of the home button (using Activator), but I find that interferes with other home button actions like opening the app switcher, triple-click-home to toggle VoiceOver and invoking Siri unfortunately. I miss Zephyr! :) It also doesn't play nice with BioProtect.

By Robert A.M. on Friday, January 10, 2014 - 03:43

Hi there Dave, I am using the most recent version of Applocker, 2.2.3, and VoiceOver is reading all items on the screen as well as the list of apps, maybe you tested an earlier version? Today, Ryan Petrich released a new Touch ID tweak, it's called BioLockdown, I haven't tested it but it seems pretty sweet. I am also using SwitchSpring on my iPad but I believe that this tweak has not been updated for 64 bit devices yet, I could be wrong though. Regards!

A followup to this: I had installed Applocker on both of my devices but had only fully configured it on my iPad 4, where VoiceOver reads the list of applications flawlessly. I just tried configuring it on my iPhone 5s and indeed, VoiceOver thinks that the list of applications is empty here. I am thinking (just a theory) that this might be a problem related to the AppList package which is installed at the same time as Applocker, and not to Applocker itself. Applist might not have yet been fully upgraded for 64 bit devices. Nevertheless, I still think that Applocker is the best option if you wish to lock individual applications and folders in your device, it has tons of features, works on all devices and even incorporates TouchID. Just have a sighted person select the applications that you wish to lock and you are ready to go. Regards!

By ikrami on Friday, January 10, 2014 - 03:43

i use a tweek called skype recorder to record skype calls, it is fairly accessible. i also use a tweek called super recorder. the author claims that it records your calls from most of the apps like viber, skype, facetime and phone calls as well. i bought it but i found it not very reliable though its interface is accessible. however, i have a question. can anyone explain how to downgrade Whatsapp to an older and more accessible version on ios7? i tried installing v2.8.4 but it kept saying that this version is out of date and i need to update. any help?

For now,, I'm using not that many tweaks. I'm currently using activator, iFile, iSounds and power alerter. I'm waiting for a few tweaks to get updates, for example springtomize. To the person who's having the 3-finger pinch issue, Voiceover uses 3-finger gestures in all directions to scroll, so it's probably intercepting them before activator.

By Dave Nason on Friday, January 10, 2014 - 03:43

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team
Thanks for confirming that about AppLocker Robert. Yeah I saw that Ryan Petrich has a similar tweak out, I might give it a try. Regarding SwitchSpring, it's working ok for me on my iPhone 5S.

By Kyle on Friday, January 10, 2014 - 03:43

i use activator and it usually works pretty well. not used any of the pinch based gestures, so i'll check that out. i'd also check out if you have an iphone 5s bio protect and bio lock down. they both protect apps by forcing you to use your finger print to open them. i personally think bio lock down looks better in my opinion because not only does it do apps, but it does toggle switches as well.for example, if you want it so you have to use your finger print to turn on and off wifi or airplane mode, you can do that with bio lock down. also, you can set it up so that you have to use a finger to access pains in the settings apps, so if you want your accessibility settings to be protected, you can do that. not to mention, bio lock down, is cheeper. $1.99 and i think bio protect is at least $2.99 if not $4.99. i don't remember of the top of my head. i also use switch spring and it works awesomely. i would also recommend Pandora skips or Pandora downloader. you might have to add another repo to your sources for that. i don't remember the one that its from. tether me is a good one if you need your phone to be a hot spot for something, but it is $4.99 so its up to you. but it works well. the only thing i'd caussion you about is that if your not careful, your carrier might catch on and start charging you for it. as long as you don't use multiple gb's of data on it you should be fine. but it works well in a pinch if your wifi gives out or if you are on a car ride or train ride and want to use something more than your phone to do something.

By Dave Nason on Friday, January 10, 2014 - 03:43

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team
Hey. Does anyone know if Active Access for Activator has been updated for iOS7 and A7 devices? I didn't get any incompatibility messages and it seemed to install fine, but I can't find it anywhere when i open up the Activator settings. Did it work well on iOS6? Regarding SwitchSpring, it usually works fine for me, but actually the quit all apps option doesn't work from time to time and I have to respring to get it to work again. Think it usually works ok though. I got BioLockdown and so far at least I think it's great and the preferences are fully VoiceOver accessible.

By Musicruz on Friday, January 10, 2014 - 03:43

Adblocker - This basically blocks the ads on any apps that has a web view feature. As a Voice Over user, Ads are pretty much nuisance to us anyway. The most useful part of this tweak is that its fixes the bug on iOS 7, that once the Voice Over comes across an ad on the web page, The Voice Over freezes up, and the only way you can get out of it is to close the particular app. No ads, no Voice Over freezing up! Virtual Home - It uses the Touch ID sensor as The home button. Lastly, To Dave, as I have mentioned on my first comment,iPhone 5s is a 64 bit with A7 Processor, so Active Access is not currently compatible with it yet.

Hey, does before I spend the money does anyone know if ProTube is VoiceOver accessible? In the past I've used YourTube for downloading which just adds a couple of buttons to the official YouTube app, but it hasn't been updated for iOS7 and historically they have been quite slow to get updates out. So I thought I might try ProTube.

By Chris Bruinenberg on Friday, January 10, 2014 - 03:43

Is there a tweak that anybody knows of to make keyboards such as fleksy or m-braille your default?

By Andrew on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

Hello fellow jailbreakers, I have a couple of questions and some observations with respect to the list that has been compiled on this threat thus far. I have FlipControlCenter with FlipLaunch installed on my I Phone 5s running 7.0.4. Does anyone know if CC Controls along with CC Toggles is any better? Thoughts on why/why not? Has anyone found a "kill all apps" solution yet? I know that "killbackground" is not up to date with IOS 7 and an email has gone unanswered with respect to asking the developer if he plans on updating the app for IOS 7 use. I am looking for a kill all apps solution that does not involve bringing up the app switcher itself(that kinda defeats the purpose) and because I'm trying to save some wear on my home button. I cannot find an option with FlipControlCenter to do this, does CC Controls or CC toggles do this? I do not care for switchspring, so that is not an option for me. I have also tried NoSlowAnimations along with Nitrous and like the use of both to provide a speed boost, but find that one of them, or both of them, affect my battery life somewhat and screw with the mail applications I have on my I Phone 5s(stock mail+GMail). Has anyone else found this to be the case? I have since uninstalled both and the issues both with battery life and my mail applications have also disappeared. I'm kind of disappointed with activator, as it does not work like it did with IOS6 and I don't know if it ever will. About all it is good for is gestures in the status bar. I used it with a lot more gestures on IOS 6 and I fear that Mr. Petrich will not follow through on making it just as accessible as it was back then. Anyone know if zephyr will be updated? Last I hear is that there are no plans at this point. What are your thoughts on my comments? -Andrew-

I am also looking for a kill apps tweak. I used remove background but it is not updated either. I tried purge but I think it involves launching the app switcher too, and I think it is not accessible. I used to kill all running apps with a single gesture or button press, and I really miss that.

By Andrew on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

Hello Jailbreakers, I have installed Flex2, and I am hoping to create some of the inaccessible features that have been lost from activator. For instance, I would like to create a three finger pinch gesture that actually works, because that gesture inside of activator does not, so that I may use this gesture to do the simulation of the home button press. I have no idea how to do this though. Is anyone here a developer and know enough about using this app to help me do this? I'm sure once I go through the motions, I would get the hang of it and I could float from there on my own, but I have no idea where to start. Any offer to help would be greatly appreciated. you can pm me at Andrew.diederick@outlook.com. Thank you. -Andrew-

Why don't you use Activator? Instead of creating a finger gesture just configure a tap or double tap on the status bar, which means double or triple using voiceover. I open the multitask bar with three taps on the status bar.

Hello, I would like to but all of my status bar uses are used already for other gestures. I have a lot and that three finger pinch was key for me in IOS 6.1.2 when I used my jailbroken I-Phone 4s. I expected that activator would operate just like it did back then, but I guess that was an incorrect assumption on my part. Not really all that happy that the developer does not at least acknowledge tweets and emails I have sent asking about accessibility with activator as well. Very frustrating. Thus, my need to create that gesture myself using flex 2. It's just a little bit over my head at this point, so I wanted some initial help. I would appreciate anything anyone could do. Thank you. -Andrew-

Hi there Andrew, If Mr. Petrich couldn't fix it, I seriously doubt that the rest of us (simple mortals that we are) can do anything about it. You are talking about creating a universal gesture that would work inside any app. Flex 2 only allows you to modify aspects of individual apps and the Springboard. In addition, this gesture needs to work with VoiceOver enabled, which makes things even more complicated. If you need to trigger more Activator actions with double and triple tap gestures I suggest installing App Activate. This tweak allows you to assign Activator actions to double and triple tapping app icons, for example, you can triple tap the Music icon to play/pause music playback, or the Mail icon to start composing a new email. I haven't tried this tweak personally but I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be VoiceOver accessible. Regarding your other question, I've tried both CCToggles and CCControls and they are, by far, not as VoiceOver accessible as FlipControlCenter. Regards!

By Dave Nason on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team
Let us know if you have any luck Andrew, I would be interested to know how to use Flex too. Though unfortunately I'd have to agree that it's not likely to help where the pinch gesture is concerned. Apple seem to have changed something about how the touch screen interacts with VoiceOver. I just downloaded a new tweak called Multitasking Gestures, which essentially does the same things that Zephyr did on iOS6. Unlike Zephyr though, it's not working when VoiceOver is switched on :( I emailed the developer and he said he'll look into it but I won't hold my breath for a fix. If only we could email Apple for advice on this haha.

By Dave Nason on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team
Hi fellow jail breakers. Apple has just released an update to iOS7, 7.0.5 for some devices. From what I can find online, the advice is to avoid the update for the time being at least. So Until further notice, don't update.

By Robert A.M. on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

Some more accessible tweaks I've installed in the last few weeks: Eclipse: a very useful tweak for users with limited vision. Intended as a "night mode" tweak for sighted users, Eclipse inverts the background and text colors inside most apps, making the background black and the text white. This is similar to the "invert colors" accessibility option built into iOS, the difference is that just the text and background colors in apps are changed. Homescreen icons and images remain untouched. I've wanted Apple to provide this feature for years! CCLoader: allows you to reorder and hide Control Center sections. Combined with FlipControlCenter and FlipLaunch, this is the best and most accessible way to customize your Control Center to your liking. In my case, I've gotten rid of the brightness controls and have a total of 12 settings toggles and 16 app shortcuts in my Control Center. Coono: another tweak useful for users with partial vision, Coono brings color to your lockscreen notifications and banners; the background color is made to match the dominant color of the corresponding app icon. If I want to activate a lockscreen notification, I can find it much faster now because I know that, for example, my message notifications are green. FolderCloser: if you open an app inside a folder and you then press the Home button, you are normally brought back to that folder. FolderCloser closes that folder for you so that you are brought directly to the main homescreen instead. iTouchSecure: allows you to enter all in-app passwords using Touch ID instead of having to type them. A much quicker way if you ask me! MyVibe: keeps your iPhone from vibrating when placed on a table or flat surface. Your phone will now only vibrate when it matters, while inside your pocket! Springtomize 3: customize your App Switcher, animations, icons, folders, dock, lockscreen, homescreens and more! One of the most comprehensive tweaks around, your imagination is the limit! I, for example, have configured my dock to hold 5 instead of 4 icons, can create folders within folders, have increased the size of app icons inside folders and have hidden my lockscreen camera grabber. It's very easy to use too! UnlockSound7: bring back the classic unlock sound to iOS, or add your own custom sound instead! Enjoy and happy jailbreaking!

By Robert A.M. on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

Hi there. Regarding Dave's concern above, Evasi0n7 v1.0.5 was just released today with full support for iOS 7.0.5, therefore, all users in parts of the world where this update is available are encouraged to update their devices by performing a restore with iTunes: 1. Open iTunes and backup your device. 2. Go to the iTunes window with your device's settings and press the restore button; the device will be restored to factory settings and updated to iOS 7.0.5. 3. Use your recent backup to restore your preferences, setup, passwords, etc. 4. Download Evasi0n7 v1.0.5 from evasi0n.com and jailbreak your device again. 5. Reinstall your tweaks from Cydia; most of your tweak preferences will also have been backed up and will be restored automatically. As Dave said, iOS 7.0.4 and 7.0.5 will most likely be the last iOS 7 versions to be supported by Evasi0n7, so it is important that you perform the procedure described above as soon as possible if you are not using the latest iOS 7.0.X version available for your device. Once Apple releases iOS 7.1, it will be impossible to carry out these steps, since Apple will force you to update to iOS 7.1 when performing a restore. iOS 7.0.5 is only available for iPhone 5C and 5S models in Asia and some parts of Europe. Regards!

By Jessica Brown on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

Hi. kill background has been updated to support iOS 7 and has been renamed to kill background7 It does not have the app filtering options to pick what apps get killed like it was in iOS 6, but you can still turn filter music on or off. All other apps will be killed though. I think if you do not want to open the switcher, you can also make an activator action to kill the apps.

By Jessica Brown on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

Someone asked if pro tube was accessible with VoiceOver. I bought it and it is fully accessible. I love it. I also love bridge by the same developer and it is also fully accessible.

By Jessica Brown on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

I have a lot of tweaks and some of them have already been listed here by other people. Some that have not been talked about are: unpower: get a sound when you unplug your device from power or the computer. password pilot: Have your app store password already in the field so you do not have to type it every time you want to download an app. disabled: don't get locked out of your device by entering too many wrong passwords. Bypass: make an activator action that will unlock your device without having to enter your passcode. Skip lock: skip the lock screen if there is no passcode and no lock screen notifications. Repower: add reboot, respring and enter safe mode buttons to your power down screen, note, to make it vo accessable, go into settings and turn on use old layout.

By Jessica Brown on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

I forgot I also have winterboard so I can use different sound theems. For example there is one called iOS 6 charging sound for iOS 7, which replaces the iOS 7 charging sound with the iOS 6 charging sound.

By Raul on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

I can't find kill background7, only the iOS 6 compatible version. Is it on a different repo?

By Andrew on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

Hello Jessica, I'm with Raul; I cannot find KillBackground7 either. Do you have a source repo you could share? Thank you. -Andrew-

By Andrew on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

Hello jailbreakers, The repo for killbackground7 is http://cydia.myrepospace/chino010/ The app does work, although it took a bit for me to find the button on the app switcher; it is really packed into the lower left hand corner of the screen. It does NOT have an activator action as of yet. Hopefully the developer will put this in once again. -Andrew-

Hi, just in case people are interested I found out about another tweak for activator yesterday. its called quit app for activator, and gives you options to either quit the current app with activator gestures or to quit all apps. the tweak is free, I tried it on my 5s, and unfortunately I get a springboard crash when I try to use a single press of the home button to quit all apps, however I have contacted the developer and sent him my syslog so I am hoping he will look at the issue, he did reply to me so at least he now knows of the problem.

By Andrew on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

Hello everyone, I have successfully loaded killbackground7 on my jb 4s, but I get the "cannot load preferences bundle" messages when I have killbackground7 on my jb 5s. Does anyone else have this same issue? Do you believe it is a conflict with one of my other tweaks or the tweak doesn't support ARM64 bit devices yet? Let me know your thoughts. Thanks -Andrew-

By Dave Nason on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team
Hi Andrew. I tried to add that source but I get a verification error. It says the server cannot be found. By any chance did you make a mistake when you typed in the URL? Cheers.

By Andrew on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

Hello Alex, I've tried quit app for activator. It crashes no matter what gesture you use; at least that has been my experience. -Andrew-

Hey Dave, Yeah, I did make a mistake. It is http://cydia.myrepospace.com/chino010 Sorry for that.

By Dave Nason on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team
Perfect thanks. Ok I've installed it and am having the same problem, it won't load the preferences bundle, on my iPhone 5S and iPad Air, but it's fine on the iPod Touch 5th gen So yeah it looks like it's not working on A7 Arm 64 bit devices.

By Raul on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

Since Quite app does not work, and kill backgrond7 does not have activator integration I will keep using Switch spring. With in the multitask bar you just close the "Home" as if it was an app and it gives you the option to respring, restart or kill all apps. It is a free tweak

By Robert A.M. on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

Hi all, I've just installed another very useful tweak for VoiceOver users! How many times have you experienced the following: 1. You take your phone out of your pocket because you received a new email or message. 2. You touch the lockscreen to have VoiceOver read you the preview text of the notification. 3. Suddenly, when VoiceOver isn't even half way through reading the text, your phone goes back to sleep, very frustrating! Well, the solution is here, simply install the tweak Lockscreen Extender! It allows you to select the number of seconds before your lockscreen should turn off; currently I have it set to 40 seconds but you should try different times and find out what works best for you. Regarding KillBackground7, the tweak isn't in one of the main repos for a reason, it is still in beta and a work in progress. Like Raul said, I would stick to SwitchSpring until the developer has finalized the tweak. Both Activator and 64bit support should come eventually. Enjoy and regards!

Hi, the developer released an update for quit app for activator last night and that has solved my crashing issue so have another go it might be solved for everyone now.

Quit app for activator doesn't work for me. When I install it and open activator to create a shortcut it doesn't appear, I surfed all options and quit app is not there.

Hi, OK this is how I created a gesture for quit app for activator, what I think you are getting confused with is that there isn't an option for quit app for activator, instead there are options called quit all apps or quit current app. So, the way I set mine up is as follows, I went to settings, then I went to activator, then in activator you have to select where you want the action to work, So you get options called anywhere, at home screen, in application, in lock screen. Because I want the gesture to work throughout ios I tapped on anywhere. At this point I am given a hole list of different ways that you can use to trigger an action, so in my case I want to use a single press of the home button to quit all apps, so I flick through my options til I found the gestures relating to the home button, I selected single press. At this point I flicked through all the possible actions I could assign to a single press of the home button and I easily found the two options, one called quit all apps, and the other called quit current app. note the home button was personal preference and of course you can use other options apart from anywhere. I hope this has been helpful, any questions please ask.

I did exactly as you did but I selected a double tap on the status bar, and the quit apps still does not appear. I will try removing and reinstalling it later. [Edit]. I reinstalled and still there is no way of getting it to work. Do I need to install something else? I only downloaded quit app for activator. If not maybe there is a compatibility problem, I have an iPhone 4s with 7.04

By Matt on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

I am having the same issue as raoul. The option to quit is not appearing in the list of actions.

By alex wallis on Monday, February 10, 2014 - 03:43

Well I honestly don't know then, did you try following my post where I explain exactly how I set my quit actions up? if so and you are having issues still all I can suggest is contact the developer, as I am having no problems with the tweak hear.

Don't forget ITransmission. I will not detail what it does here, but it is completely accessible with only one button unlabeled, but it is easily figurable

By alex wallis on Monday, March 10, 2014 - 03:43

Hi, for those having issues using quit app for activator, the tweak has just received an update, the change log specifically mentions fixing missing activator action, it also adds a menu item under settings to control tweak behaviour, you can configure options like displaying of alerts, quitting active apps and a few other things. I would recommend anyone previously having issues getting this to work should have another go.

Hi, the tweak is also broken for me as well, I don't get a springboard crash, but when I assign the activator action nothing now happens, quite annoying as the old version worked fine for me. I have written to the developer and I would encourage other people to do the same, I am beginning to think that this tweak might be the authors first ever one, kind of annoying given that the old version worked for me. The developer will probably ask you to send him a syslog, you can get tools that will create a syslog from cydia, you install them, then make the issue happen and send the log to the developer. then you can just either access the iphone file system remotely, copy it to your computer then email it, or you should be able to use ifile to also email it, though ifile does have some accessibility issues at the moment. Remember to uninstall any syslog tools after you send one to the developer as you don't want to permanently log everything your system is doing.

By alex wallis on Monday, March 10, 2014 - 03:43

Well quit app for activator has had another few updates today, the change log specifically talks about fixing a respring issue. I managed to get my copy working again, I think the issue I was having might have had something to do with the fact I had set up activator actions in the version before we were told to assign them again. I reset all my activator settings to defaults then reassigned my quit app actions again and the tweak began to work again. I would suggest give it another try and if it still doesn't work of course send a syslog, but do try resetting your activator settings to see if that helps as well if you continue to get problems.

By Raul on Monday, March 10, 2014 - 03:43

It keeps crashing. I will keep using switchspring. Thanks for the warnings.