The ability to have rapid app switching and extended multitasking is one of the biggest reasons why I keep my iPhone jailbroken. So I’m always keen to see more options and alternatives for doing app switching on the iPhone.
The latest new jailbreak app to offer help in this area is Circuitous. As you can see in the screencap above, Circuitous provides a Dock-like layover on the right side of the iPhone screen, from where you can launch running apps, or close them out. I’ve been trying the app out a little today and have some quick first impressions to share on it. Hit the break for those plus some more screencaps
I haven’t spent very long at all with Circuitous yet, so take these with however many grains of salt you like. Some first impressions:
— It looks much nicer with PogoPlank – another jailbreak favorite of mine that replaces springboard for me and lets me run 170 apps while having just one (mostly empty) home screen, Because PogoPlank leaves the right hand side of the iPhone screen free of icons, there is plenty of space for the Circuitous dock to stand out. It does not look so great if I flip back to using a traditional springboard
— Like most good app switchers by now, Circuitous offers a good range of invocation methods (ways to launch it). You can choose from a good list of hardware button presses or on-screen gestures. Right now I’m using the shake method – so I just shake the iPhone to activate it, and it works nicely for me.
— It appears to possibly have a conflict of some kind with ProSwitcher or SBSettings or something else that I have active that also uses Activator for controlling launch methods – as every time I try to set it to use a press and hold on Status Bar method it crashes out of the Settings app and doesn’t hold that setting. I’m fine with using the shake method, but have noticed that a few of the other screen gesture methods don’t want to play ball for me – again I’m guessing because of other apps I have installed that use gestures.
— It handles things well when you have multiple apps open. Although it only shows you four app icons at a time within its dock, it lets you scroll down to see more if you have more running. This works fine for me so far, and I’m not in the habit of running any more than half a dozen apps (at most) concurrently anyway.
— One thing I’m not so keen on is that once you call up Circuitous, you have to shake again to get rid of it (or use whichever gesture / button press you have selected). It would feel nicer to me if you could just tap anywhere on the screen away from its dock.
— Interestingly, it continues to overlay the screen even when you go into an app, until you use your launch / exit method to get rid of it. Again, this would feel more elegant to me if you could just tap anywhere in the running app to have get rid of the dock.
— It feels a little bulky to me, in its appearance. A smaller, sleeker dock / strip of icons would be nice to see, at least as an option within its settings.
That’s about it for now. I’m going to continue to use Circuitous, while also using ProSwitcher for pretty much the same thing, just to see how I like it and how it does.
You can find Circuitous in the Cydia jailbreak app store now, and it is free.
Have any of you tried Circuitous yet? If so, what are your thoughts on it?
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TAGS: iPhone app switching apps, iPhone jailbreak apps
