SmartScreen provides widgets for your iPhone lock screen — provided you’re jailbroken, that it. The demo above shows calendar, stocks, and weather, but the developer will be making an SDK available so other apps can get in on the widgety goodness. Conceivably Twitter updates, IMs, to-dos — any information snippet really — could be added.
On behalf of non-Jailbreakers, Gizmodo asks Apple to bake this type of functionality into the official firmware, and let’s face it — they need something for iPhone 4.0 next year. Does it complicate Apple’s current, zen-like lock screen? Sure, but that lock screen is currently so informationally sparse, maybe it could use some complication?
If you try out SmartScreen, let us know what you think.
Efiko Software, the developer behind which we remember fondly for providing much needed UI relief to our old Palm OS devices, has produced a very interesting looking quick tweeting application for Jailbroken iPhones called qTweeter.
It works almost magically: just wipe your finger down from the very top status bar in an application and a quick Twitter window slides down and the keyboard slides up to overlay your screen. If you’re in iPod and want to tweet the music you’re listening to, if you’re in Safari and want to tweet a link you’re reading, a quick button press auto-fills the details in your tweet for you.
It can alternatively — or simultaneously — update your Facebook status as well.
This means no exiting one app, launching another, waiting for load, waiting to launch entry dialogs, etc. when you want to tweet something. Just drag and go.
These kinds of apps show that, even post iPhone 3.0, until Apple surfaces more API’s and figures out how to allow better cross- and multi-app functionality while retaining security, there’ll still be a vibrant community of Jailbreak developers — and some amazing software to go along with it.
Available for trial on Cydia, and can be unlocked fully via donation.
Tired of hitting the 123 key to toggle on the numeric keyboard? Well, obviously some ingenious iPhone hacker was and whipped up this interesting little Jailbreak app to change the standard 4-row virtual keyboard into a five row with numbers surfaced right on top (or symbols, if you tap the shift key).
Want to grab it? Gizmodo (via iPhone Hacks) says you can find it under “5-Row QWERTY Keyboard” in Cydia”
Should Apple consider changing their own virtual keyboard to be more like this 5-row? Or are the keys on the 4-row already small enough?
