If you are an iOS user, you probably give your home button (and your thumb) a grueling workout on a daily basis. Every time you want to use multitasking to switch apps, you have to double-tap the lone physical button on the device’s front face. Apple has implemented multitasking gestures for the iPad, but has done no such thing for the iPhone or iPod touch. You can rack another one up for the jailbreak community, as it has released a new app that allows you to multitask on the iPhone with single-finger gestures.
Zephyr is the creation of Cydia developer chpwn, and the premise is simple: swipe up from the bottom of the screen to bring up the app-switcher (normally activated with a double tap of the home button), and swipe left to right to switch back and forth between recent apps.
Apple has likely opted out of iPhone and iPod touch multitasking gestures due to the small size of the screen. How many gestures can you implement on a 3.5-inch display? Zephyr, however, makes a strong case against that argument. The left to right swipe lets you start the gesture from the bezel, which frees up a bit extra room.
In fact the tweak fits so naturally into iOS that this could be another jailbreak feature that Apple steals and uses for itself. We have seen this previously with iOS functions like multitasking (it closely resembles an old Cydia app called Circuitious), notification banners and Wi-Fi Sync (Apple didn’t even bother changing the name of that one). Of course, as the Zephyr gesture tweak borrows heavily from the iPad’s multitasking gestures, it wouldnot be as blatant a move for Apple to “borrow” it.
Zephyr is a free tweak, and can be found by searching for it in Cydia on a jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch.
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