Well, you knew it was coming. After the ultimate list of new features in iOS 5, and realizing that Apple owes the jailbreak community a bit of thanks, it’s time to compare.
What jailbreak tweaks/apps/extensions did Apple “receive inspiration” from in iOS 5? Whether you see these jailbreak apps as influencing Apple or not, it’s pretty clear that Apple has had its eye on the Cydia frontier for quite some time.
So, here you go: A list of the jailbreak tweaks that are duplicated as features in iOS 5…
Notifications
- LockInfo, Notified, MobileNotifier, IntelliScreen
Push notifications are now presented in a more unobstrusive way, and a new dashboard view allows you to see all of your notifications in one place. You can even change alert styles for incoming notifications and manipulate how notifications interact with your lockscreen.
In the Notification Center HUD itself, Apple was clearly inspired by Android as well. Like Google’s notification pane, users can assign widgets, including several that have already been made by third party developers. The widget functionality sounds a whole lot like Widge, an initiative that Peter Hajas (dev of MobileNotifier) was beginning before he was hired by Apple to work on iOS.
The Notification “pulldown” gesture in iOS 5 is also exactly how SBSettings has worked on the iPhone for years. SBSettings is one of the crown jewels of the jailbreak community, and is available for free in Cydia.
To be fair, Apple has gone a step farther by allowing you to customize notification behavior for individual apps in Notification Center. You can choose how many notifications a certain app can display, etc. This should help maintain the envitable clutter that will exist after a day of push notifications.
Now, on to the rest of our list.
iOS 5 feature, then jailbreak tweak:
- Camera volume button snap – FastSnap, SnapTap, CameraButtons
- Camera editing enhancements – Snapture
- Access camera from lockscreen – Snappy
- Photo albums in Photo – PhotoAlbums+
- Private browsing in Safari – Covert
- Wi-Fi sync with iTunes – Wi-Fi Sync
- Use while syncing with iTunes – Synchronicity, FreeSync
- Enhancements to Mail – Mail Enhancer
- Rich text in Mail – Rich Text
- Mark multiple emails as read – Mark Read
- Delete individual calls – Call Delete, MobileLog
- Text shortcuts – Xpandr
- New gestures – Activator
- Custom vibrations – Vibrafications, MyProfiles
- Dictionary – “Define” Action Menu Plugin
- Tone Store – AnyRing, ToneFXs
- Emoji – Vmoji
- Stream HD Youtube content – My3G
- FaceTime over 3G – My3G, FaceBreak
- Contact pictures integrated in message display – ChatPic
We think we’ve got a pretty good list here, but we need your help. What are we missing? Please help in the comments below and we’ll add your submission to the list.