Music

Music controls can normally be accessed from anywhere in iOS 9 using the Control Center. Developers have taken this concept and run with it, creating many alternative music interfaces for jailbroken devices. The latest iteration of Clex continues the trend, opening up a whole new world of music control. Different parts of the tweak are invoked by swiping directly from the left or right edge of the iPhone screen. Besides a play button, vast amounts of information regarding the currently playing music is accessible.

Losing track of the currently playing app can be easy for avid music lovers. After all, there many ways to play tunes on an iPhone or iPad. Normally, iOS does not display the now playing app, only the artist and currently playing track. If forgotten, the only way to find which app is playing the audio is to backtrack to the app switcher.

The jailbreak tweak Helius 2 provides another way to modify lock screen music controls on iOS devices. Similar to Spin or the CustomCover theming tool, Helius 2 makes cosmetic changes without drastically changing functionality. Once installed, the tweak can be enabled with a toggle under Settings.

Everest is a jailbreak tweak that offers a new way to control the stock Music app or Spotify tracks. Once installed, any Activator gesture can be used to invoke a banner notification. Inside this banner is the title of the current track, and a small thumbnail of album artwork.

Music can be controlled from directly within the banner. Pause or play is accomplished by tapping the button, while skipping tracks forward or backward involves a swipe right or left. Tapping the song name will open the app which is currently playing music.

Looking for an interesting way to control music playback on a jailbroken device? Clex for iOS 7 provides two different sidebar interfaces that can be accessed with a swipe from the side of the screen. Swipe from the left and view a list of all songs in the Music app.

Swipe from the right side of the display and playback controls appear, along with artist information and a list of songs from the same artist. In fact, both sidebar controls can be displayed at the same time, by swiping to show them both.