Notification Center

Expanding the widgets and capabilities of Notification Center is a favorite hobby of jailbreak developers. Prolific note takers might like the recent jailbreak tweak NCMemo, which is available for free on Cydia. NCMemo inserts a text box directly into the Today tab of the iOS Notification Center.

Once installed, NCMemo can be switched on under Notification Center -> NCMemo. The text box can be resized and moved directly within the Today tab. Colors and fonts appearing within the text box are fully customizable under Settings -> NCMemo. To create a note, just open the Notification Center from anywhere in iOS and enter text.

Postponing a notification for later in iOS is not possible with a stock system. Repeat Alerts can be set for Messages under Settings -> Notification Center -> Messages, however these only happen at pre-set 2 minute intervals. What about delaying a notification from another app?

This is where the free tweak NotifyMeAgain can help those with jailbroken iOS 7 devices. In place of repeated alerts, NotifyMeAgain uses two simple gestures to delay re-notification alerts from any app. A swipe left on the notification banner will delay an alert by one interval of time, while swiping right can be set to another delay. This can help to remind the user of notifications that can't be dealt with immediately.

Some jailbreak tweaks are devoted to the details, polishing the user experience even further than stock iOS. One such tweak is MarkAsRead7, which supports jailbroken devices running iOS 7.1.x. MarkAsRead7 has just one function, eliminating what has become a pet peeve for some Notification Center users.

Normally when clearing notifications from the Notification Center, icon badges for the associated app on the home screen are not cleared. For example, until a message is actually read in the Messages app, the icon badge remains. Once installed, MarkAsRead7 hides badges for these cleared notifications immediately.

Sometimes you're in the middle of reading something on the iPhone and an incoming banner notification suddenly covers up the top of the screen. This can be irritating if the content is important or you're doing something else that requires more display real estate. If you're iPhone is jailbroken, now you can install CoverMeNot to improve these banner notifications.

What CoverMeNot does is simple but effective. The images above illustrate what happens when the tweak is installed and a notification banner appears. The status bar at the top of the screen is automatically made wider to match the size of the notification banner.

One of the cool features coming to iOS 6 this fall is a Twitter widget for the Notification Center. Users can also expect a similar Facebook widget when the service is fully integrated into the iOS system with version 6. In the meantime, it's possible to install the Twitter widget right now on jailbroken devices.

After jailbreaking your iOS 5 device, you can find the iOS 6 Twitter Widget in Cydia under Addons (Notification Center). The package comes to us free from developer Mathieu Hendey on the BigBoss repository. Once installed, the add on can be activated by navigating to Settings -> Notification Center -> Twitter Widget -> ON.