Love it or hate it, most of Apple’s modern-day mobile devices come standard with a top-of-display notch that houses the TrueDepth camera system used by Face ID for biometric authentication and for selfie images. Now that the notch has become the norm, the best thing you can do is embrace it; but why not go a step further and expand it?
NotchControl is a new free jailbreak tweak by iOS developer PeterDev that builds upon the notch’s native aesthetics and functionality. With it, you can incorporate new controls and information displays into the notch, such as things that pertain to music, time, or weather.
In the screenshot examples above, you’ll see just what we mean. Among them, our favorites are the music controls and the weather display, hands down.
Upon installing NotchControl, you’ll find a dedicated preference pane in the Settings app where you can configure your handset’s notch however you like:
Here, you can:
- Toggle NotchControl on or off on demand
- Choose the modules you’d like to use:
- Weather
- Now Playing
- Music Controller
- Clock
The developer provides a Respring button so that you can save any changes you make on demand, and you’ll also find a button for resetting everything to their defaults and then Respringing, which works well if you fancy erasing all your customizations.
We understand that NotchControls will be a highly-subjective tweak since some people don’t like the notch, but if you’ve come to get used to it, then you just might appreciate a tweak like this that helps to make the notch more useful.
If you’re interested in trying NotchControl, then you can download it for free from the Nepeta repository in Cydia or Sileo. The tweak supports all jailbroken iOS 11 and 12 devices that have notches, and it will be essentially useless on non-notched handsets. Moreover, the tweak is open-source on the developer’s GitHub page for those who might be interested in learning more about how it works.
What are your thoughts regarding expanding the iPhone’s notch with more features? Let us know in the comments section below.
