We love iOS 5 here at Redmond Pie, and one of its top additions to an ageing mobile operating system is Notification Center, Apple’s new home for all the messages and push notifications we all receive.
Perhaps the thing we like the most about iOS 5’s Notification Center isn’t so much the things it already does, but the things we think it could do in the future.
Take the latest Notification Center-powered jailbreak tweak to come across the Redmond Pie gaze today – WeeKillBackground.
Just as Apple’s Weather and Stocks apps have their own Notification Center entries, we’re quietly hopeful, and slight expectant, that Apple will also give third-party applications access to slots inside the pull-down notification drawer.
Not ones for waiting for Apple to give them permission, the jailbreak community has taken to iOS 5 like collective ducks to water, and WeeKillBackground is the latest to see a release on the Cydia app store.
What WeeKillBackground does shouldn’t really take that much explaining, seeing as the clue is very much in the name.
Once installed via Cydia, WeeKillBackground adds a button to Notification Center’s pull-down drawer which, once tapped, closes all running applications and processes, freeing up some much needed memory.
Kill all running apps from Notification Center. A single tap kills all running apps, saving you battery life and RAM.
NotificationCenter addons can be configured from the Settings app, in the Notifications pane
As always, in order to install this tweak, you will need a jailbroken iPhone running iOS 5. You can follow our step by step guide posted here to jailbreak your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch on iOS 4.3.5 using Redsn0w (or PwnageTool). For jailbreaking iOS 5 tethered using Redsn0w, you can follow our complete step by step guide posted here, or here if you want to use Sn0wbreeze on Windows. Since jailbreak on iOS 5 is currently limited to tethered boot only, you can install ‘SemiTether’ patch (instructions here) from Cydia to make your jailbreak semi-tethered on iOS 5.
As great as Notification Center is, we can’t help but think that Apple isn’t quite using it to its full potential just yet. That will no doubt change as and when the Cupertino outfit decides to give third-party developers access to the whole shebang, but the jailbreak community has once again taken the bull by the horns and done what Apple should have done since day one. Here’s hoping for lots more Notification center widgets, whether they be of the authorized Apple variety, or the less legitimate Cydia brand.
Either way, iOS 5 has undoubtedly opened the doors for some interesting tweaks and widgets, no matter what the source.
Bring it on!
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