It’s always great to open up the App Store and find a dozen new app updates waiting for download, but downloading so many items at once presents a small issue. If you’re like me and you have a ton of apps scattered around four or five pages in multiple folders, then it can be tedious to locate each app to check its download progress.
Download To Newsstand is a recently released jailbreak tweak that attempts to address this. It moves all pending downloads into the Newsstand folder for an easy to see centralized location for all pending downloads.
Once installed, Download To Newsstand just starts working, as there are no options or settings to configure. From this point forward, all new downloads, including updates to existing apps on your device, will show up in the Newsstand folder. Pending downloads will be shown as a flat newspaper styled app icon without any of the lighting effects that you see on a normal app icon on the Home screen.
Other than that small visual discrepancy, all functionally remains as one would expect. Tapping on a pending download will pause the download. Tapping and holding on an app icon enables wiggle mode, and from there you can rearrange the app icons, or delete a pending download.
Up to three icons are present at any time on a row inside Newsstand, and it can accommodate as many pending downloads as you can muster by means of the columns of shelves. If you’re one of those that rarely uses the Newsstand folder, then Download To Newsstand is a great excuse to get some use out of the neglected feature.
One thing that I, and perhaps many others will find extremely annoying, is the fact that Download To Newsstand physically moves each app icon after an update to said app is completed. That means that if you’re like me, having your own intricate organizational system setup for your apps, then Download To Newsstand will mess that all up. If you have an app residing in a folder, then this tweak will remove it from said folder, and place the finished download on the same page where the Newsstand app icon resides. The same is true for app icons residing on a different page than the Newsstand app icon. For this reason, if you’re anal about your Home screen’s organization, you definitely want to stay away from Download To Newsstand.
When I first saw this tweak I instantly thought it was a silly idea, but after some usage, I can see why it would be an attractive option for some jailbreakers. It is annoying, especially for long downloads, to have to search every page and folder on your iPhone for a specific download. This tweak makes it easy to see exactly what’s downloading at any given time. Unfortunately its shortcoming will deter most users, but if your curiosity is peaked at all, I suggest giving it a try.
Download To Newsstand is a free jailbreak tweak, and it’s available right now on Cydia’s BigBoss repo. What do you think?
