The Best Cydia Tweaks & Apps For Your Jailbroken iPad

Owners of A5 devices had been without a iOS 5.1.1 jailbreak for quite a long time, until Absinthe 2.0 finally came along. So, if you own a freshly jailbroken iPad (especially iPad 2 or the new iPad 3), you might be in need of a refresher course related to Cydia, and all the wonderful things it is capable of doing. Most of the tweaks available in the Cydia store work for iPad, despite being developed specifically for iPhone. However, there are some tweaks in the jailbreak store that are designed particularly keeping in mind the iPad’s larger screen real estate. Past the break, we have for you a list of some of the top tweaks of the genre.

For your convenience, the tweaks below have been categorized under Free and Paid ones, separately.

Free

TenIconSwitcher

The App Switcher tray is one of the most important parts of any iOS device, but on the iPad, it gives the impression that it could have been more well-optimized for the tablet’s bigger screen. TenIconSwitcher makes the task management tray just about perfect for the iPad, by increasing each App Switcher page’s capacity to 10 from the usual 7. The expansion of the iPad’s App Switcher tray remains valid in both landscape and portrait modes.

SplitMail

The iPad comes up with a pretty good split-screen view in the stock Mail app if you are holding your device in landscape orientation. For all the fans of that split-screen view, SplitMail is the perfect tweak to have on your iPad. With this tweak, the Mail app will always show the preview of each selected item in the right-hand pane of the screen, while listing the contents of your inbox (or the current folder) to the left, even in portrait mode! SplitMail is available as a free download in the BigBoss repo of the Cydia store, and is developed by the reputed developer Ryan Petrich.

CamSlideshow

When the first iPad was released, it lacked a camera, but things have come a long way since then. The new iPad (or the ‘iPad 3’) has got a pretty awesome 5 MP iSight camera that is capable of shooting some stunning images. That’s why CamSlideshow can prove to be a useful addition, as it allows you to quickly access the camera from the lock screen by tapping the slideshow button. For further details, read our full review of CamSlideshow.

SwipeSelection

iPad is just about perfect for note taking and editing tasks, thanks to its large keyboard and a pretty decent Notes app. SwipeSelection makes the whole iPad word-editing experience even better by adding gestures to the mix. The tweak makes sure that you don’t have to painstakingly select each alphabet if you want to edit a word. Just make a swipe in the appropriate direction on the keyboard itself, and the tweak will automatically select the desired text. To learn all the gestures supported by SwipeSelection, read our full review.

NCPad

The notification banners always look a bit out-of-place and odd on an iPad, as they don’t cover the full width of the screen, giving the impression that they have been hastily ported to the iPad from the iPhone’s smaller screen. NCPad stretches all banner notifications to match the full width of your iPad’s screen. Not only does that make the banners look better, it allows you to view more information within notifications.

Overachiever

If you do a lot of gaming on your iPad, then you’re probably going to appreciate Overachiever. The tweak lets you unlock all Game Center achievements for any game! Read the full review of the tweak for further details.

xCon

xCon isn’t specifically optimized for the iPad, but is as useful for it as it is on an iPhone. The tweak lets its users run any app that usually refuses to work on all jailbroken devices (like DirecTV, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, etc.). You can get a complete list of supported apps in our reviewof xCon. In case one of the supported apps gets an update that renders xCon useless for it, you will have to splash some cash (not much, just $2) and purchase xCon Alias from the ModMyi repo in the Cydia store, which should get things working again.

DisableLaunch

DisableLaunch really fortifies the security of your iPad. It gives you full control over your device’s privacy, and also incorporates gestures. The tweak allows you to lock your apps or make it impossible to delete them, with a single Activator gesture. We previously posted a review for the tweak, but since then, a pro version for DisableLaunch has been released, and later made free. DisableLaunch Pro is fully compatible with all (current) iPad models, and comes with quite a lot of privacy and gesture options.

Paid

Quasar

If any tweak deserves to carry a $9.99 price tag, it’s Quasar. After all, it changes the way you do everything on your iPad! Quasar runs all iPad apps as standalone windows. You can control each app window separately, maximize it to run the app in full screen mode (just the way iOS apps usually run), and rotate each window as well. The tweaks supports running multiple applications in distinct windows simultaneously, and you are likely to forget that your are using an iPad and not a computer. Quasar is available for download in the BigBoss repo.

FullScreen for iPad

Priced at $2.19, FullScreen for iPad makes the stock Safari app just about perfect. The tweak has two main tasks; it incorporates a full screen mode within Safari, and also comes with some really awesome gesture control options. The gestures can be personalized from the Settings app, and once configured, FullScreen makes sure that you never have to use any of the buttons available in Safari, as everything can be done via gestures! FullScreen for iPad can be downloaded from the BigBoss repo in the Cydia store.

LockInfo

If you don’t like to see all that wasted, empty space on your iPad’s lockscreen, give LockInfo a try. The tweak populates the lockscreen of an iPad with a lot of widgets rather than just the latest notifications. Using LockInfo, you can view your reminders, messages, calendar, mail and just about anything else you can possibly want on your lockscreen. In addition to all the widgets available for LockInfo in its Settings menu, you can add some third-party ones as well by searching through the Cydia store. LockInfo for iPad is available for $7.99 from the ModMyi repo in the Cydia store. If the price sounds a bit too steep to you, you can try the 14-day fully-functional trail for the tweak before making the purchase.

Springtomize 2

If there was to be declared a king of all customization tweaks for iOS, Springtomize 2 will easily annihilate all the competition. From lockscreen tweaks to Notification Center customization and icon revamping, Springtomize 2 has got it all covered. The tweak will let you alter the looks of your iPad in any way you want, and that, too, just for $2.99. Another good thing about Springtomize 2 is the convenience with which it makes all the cosmetic changes. In most menus of the tweak, you just have to hit a toggle or adjust a slider, and you are done.

Zephyr

Zephyr caused quite a stir when it was first released, but if you still don’t know what the famous tweak exactly does, read the tweak’s review we posted last year. In a nutshell, Zephyr makes iOS multitasking a whole lot cooler. You don’t have to rely on the App Switcher tray anymore if you have this tweak installed, and it certainly looks amazing on an iPad. Since we last reviewed Zephyr, the tweak has increased in price to $4.99, but that increase is accompanied by the addition of new gestures and customization options (you can now swipe upward to reveal the Springboard of your iPad, or navigate to the App Switcher using just an upward flick, rather than a four-fingered drag).

Honorable Mentions

There are some Cydia tweaks and apps that have been around for so long that people just tend to take them for granted. Nonetheless, their importance and usefulness is not diminished in any way.

Activator

Activator is a gesture-control platform for the entire OS, one that is used by many Cydia tweaks and apps as well, to provide the user with a quick way to control various aspects of the OS from anywhere within it. If you’re new to Activator, just try to count the tweaks and apps that rely on Activator gestures to know its importance.

RetinaPad & Fullforce

RetinaPad & Fullforce are must-have iPad-specific tweaks that enable Retina display for iPhone apps on Apple’s tablet that support it, and force them to switch to full screen mode, respectively.

iFile

iFile gives you access to the whole iOS file system (which makes it one of the ways to apply a number of iOS hacks to your device), and provides an extremely easy (and wireless) way of transferring all sorts of files to and from your iPad.

SBSettings

A customizable, skinnable utility that saves a lot of time with its plethora of shortcuts and toggles for various system settings, including WiFi, Bluetooth, Reboot and Respring, includes a task manager, integrates with the Notification Center and allows you to set a custom carrier name, among various other parameters.

Infinifolders

One of my personal favorites. Allows users to add as many apps to a folder as they want; a must-have option if you have a lot of apps of the same kind and hate arranging them into multiple folders, cluttering your home screen.

InifiniDock

As its name suggests, the concept behind this tweak is similar to that of Infinifolders, but it lets you add as many icons to the dock as you want. The tweak is particularly useful for the iPad, owing to its larger screen.

VLC media player

The popular media player that was taken off the App Store, now available only on the Cydia Store for jailbroken deviecs. Supports all (or most, anyway) media formats.

f.lux

Acts as an intelligent eye-protector for you, changing the display temperature of your iPad according to the time of day, and setting a pleasant night filter on the screen each evening. You can read more about f.lux in our review of the Cydia tweak.

Winterboard

A popular themeing patform with countless downloadable themes for both the iPad & iPhone available on the Cydia Store.

Most of these tweaks are those that will optimize the way you use your iPad for routine tasks. Some of the paid entries in our list might look a bit too expensive; the reason they’ve been included in this list, is that they are worth the demanded price. If you know a tweak  that you think should be added to this list, do let us know in the comments section below!

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Hamza Khalid

Handles Windows Phone, iOS and Cydia. A big WP7 fan, who just loves writing about anything and everything. Google+

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