Ben's Blog World: How to setup LockInfo for iPhone [Jailbreak]

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

How to setup LockInfo for iPhone [Jailbreak]

LockInfo is a great app available to jailbreakers that once again fills a functionality gap — this one making up for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad’s poor notification system. Until Apple implements a better solution, David Ashman has done an incredible job supplementing notifications with LockInfo. Even though LockInfo is an extremely intuitive and powerful [...]

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Even though LockInfo is an extremely intuitive and powerful app, the setup can be a bit tedious. But when you get it right, you’ll be in notification heaven! Hit the jump for a quick guide and a video with some tips for optimally configuring LockInfo.

*As a side note, LockInfo is $4.99 right now, as of November 7, 2010 – that price will go to $7.99, so if you’ve been contemplating, you may want to jump on the current price. There is also a 14 day trial if you would like to test it out first.

First you’ll need to purchase LockInfo from Cydia. After you’ve done that, you will configure it through your main iPhone settings panel. You’ll see two sections you will use. The general LockInfo settings section and the Activator settings section.

Activator is a universal app that’ll appear on its own once you have an app that supports it. It allows you to customize gestures to activate different apps. For example, I have Activator set to launch Infoshade for LockInfo when I hold down on the status bar. If I slide up from the bottom of my screen, it’ll launch a QuickSend window for iRealSMS. So once you’ve got LockInfo configured, go ahead and set whatever gestures are comfortable for you.

LockInfo also has several plug-ins you can install via Cydia, which most if not all come at no additional cost. Everything from weather widgets, twitter, to do apps, RSS feeds, and more. I typically bypass a lot of plug-ins and here’s why: battery life. The general notification plug-ins is pretty universal. If your apps push themselves, why install a separate plug-in to fetch info and sacrifice precious battery?

As far as Twitter notifications go, I use Boxcar. I also use it for Facebook. This way, I have one app that pushes for two. I’ve set Boxcar to launch my chosen Twitter client and to launch the Facebook app. So if I click any of these notifications from the homescreen, Boxcar will quickly put me right into my chosen client. Whether you use Boxcar, Notifo, or any other push notification app, it should work the same. Notifications will also be instant instead of polling at set intervals, like most plug-ins will require. LockInfo’s default notifications feature will also aggregate IMs from Beejive and any other application that allows notifications, even games like Words With Friends. It’ll simply suppress the default pop-up notifications and present them under the LockInfo notifications tab instead.

Within LockInfo, you’ll be presented with 3 main views for information – lock screen, spring board, and Infoshade. While the first two are pretty easy to understand, Infoshade may not be. I find it best to compare it to an Android-style notification system. You can set a gesture in activator for Infoshade and it will simply drop down whenever you call it from the springboard gesture. So if you hear your e-mail chime in and you don’t want to exit out of what you’re doing, simply use your chosen gesture and Infoshade will drop down and present you with all your information. You can then quickly dismiss e-mails or notifications, or simply delete them. Mail also supports a quick view if you tap on an e-mail. If you’d like to respond, you can click the respond button and it’ll launch your mail app. Or you can trash it from the quick view screen.

However you decide to set up LockInfo is up to you, these are just some helpful hints I’ve learned using it. If you’ve got more, be sure to share them in the comments for in our Jailbreak Forums! Also, if you’d like to see something in future updates or have a feature request (or need technical help), check out David Ashman’s webpage for LockInfo as well.