One thing I’ve always liked about jailbreaking is that I could improve the accessibility of outdoor weather condition information. Popular tweaks I’ve used in the past include Forecast and Meteor, but newer iterations of iOS most certainly call for newer solutions.
While the latest versions of iOS incorporate a powerful weather widget that users can add to the Home Screen or access from the Today page, I still appreciate some of the more integrated methods that jailbreak tweaks bring to the table.
iOS developer MidnightChips is reviving some of those aforementioned methods this week with the release of a new jailbreak tweak dubbed Asteroid.
Asteroid is a lot like it’s predecessors in many respects, but it also impresses with modern features that are certain to catch users’ eyes through use. For example, the tweak displays weather app-inspired animations over the top of the Home and Lock Screen wallpapers, such as raindrops when it’s raining outside or snowfall when it’s snowing outside.
A more familiar feature will be how Asteroid animates the native Weather app’s icon to depict the current weather conditions outside. Users can also opt to put weather conditions in the Status Bar, or to replace the Lock Screen’s Press Home to Unlock or Swipe to Unlock text with weather conditions instead. For example, it might say something like, “Partly cloudy today. It’s currently 8º; the high will be 15º.”
Once installed, Asteroid walks you through an on-screen setup process. You can either move through the setup process, or skip it and configure Asteroid later.
Speaking of configurations, Asteroid adds a dedicated preference pane to the Settings app where users can configure the tweak and its behavior everywhere it appears in iOS:
As you can see for yourself, the preference pane is divided into several sections, which we’ll break down for you below:
Home Screen
Under the Home Screen preference pane, users can:
- Toggle Home Screen weather animations on or off on demand
- Enable or disable the animation background (the same as the native Weather app)
- Enable or disable custom location:
- Configure the custom location you wish to use
- Enable or disable custom weather conditions
- Enable or disable nighttime weather animations
- Select a custom condition to be used
Lock Screen
Under the Lock Screen preference pane, users can:
- Toggle Lock Screen weather animations on or off on demand
- Enable or disable the animation background (the same as the native Weather app)
- Enable or disable custom location:
- Configure the custom location you wish to use
- Enable or disable custom weather conditions
- Enable or disable nighttime weather animations
- Select a custom condition to be used
- Hide or show a weather conditions icon under the time indicator
- Enable or disable weather forecast where “Press Home to Unlock” or “Swipe to Unlock” text would normally appear
App Icon
Under the App Icon preference pane, users can:
- Enable a live weather icon for weather-centric applications
- Choose which app(s) to enable the live app icon for
- Enable or disable the animation on apps
- Enable or disable the animation background
- Enable or disable the weather glyph
- Enable or disable a localized temperature reading
- Enable or disable a custom location
- Select a custom location
- Enable or disable custom weather condition
- Enable or disable nighttime weather animations
- Select a custom condition to be used
Status Bar
Under the Status Bar preference pane, users can:
- Choose a preferred option for replacing the stock carrier text:
- The original Asteroid interface
- Icon only
- Temperature only
- Both icon and temperature
- Add the weather to the time
- The original Asteroid interface
- Icon only
- Temperature only
- Both icon and temperature
- Enable tapping on the time to view the current weather conditions outside
The developer provides a respring button at the top-right of the primary preference pane to help users facilitate a respring and save their changes.
According to the developer, careful accommodations have been made to streamline the user experience on user devices, however those with lower memory allotments notice reductions in performance when compared to newer handsets with more memory. It’s also worth noting that Asteroid is the first tweak to be written with the new Orion project that was announced back in September, which means Asteroid was developed using Swift.
Those interested in upgrading their jailbroken handset’s weather display experience can purchase the new Asteroid tweak from the Chariz repository for $1.99. The tweak supports pwned iOS 14 devices only.
Do you have plans to install Asteroid? Be sure to let us know why or why not in the comments section down below.
