Those interested in improving the functionality and appearance of the lock screen should take a look at a new jailbreak tweak available in Cydia now called BuddyLock by iOS developer Jacob Caraballo.
Shown above, BuddyLock lets you configure just about anything on the lock screen. The new unlocking interface looks and behaves almost similarly to JellyLock, but the features are much more extensive and there is a ton of customization that you can take advantage of. This interface consists of a circular icon at the bottom of the lock screen that you can drag anywhere on the lock screen, either to the unlock icon, camera icon, or to any of the customizable application shortcuts.
BuddyLock also gives the user the ability to use sidebars on the lock screen, which are accessed by swiping from the right or from the left of the display. The sidebar can be either for contacts, toggles/shortcuts, or song playlists. You can also disable them outright:
After you install the tweak, you will find a preferences pane in the Settings application where you can play around with the several customization options:
At the top you will find the ability to enable or disable the tweak on demand, and you’ll also find a cell for theming, but we’ll get back to the extensive theming options later on.
From the main preferences pane, you will also find a cell where you can configure the application shortcuts that appear on the lock screen, an option to enable or disable the folder on the lock screen (you can also configure the applications in the folder), choose what kinds of sidebars you can access on the lock screen, configure Activator actions for the date header, hide or show elements on the lock screen, and enable or disable a feature that allows you to swipe all notifications away.
From the theming cell of the main preferences pane, you will find an extensive list of options where you can configure the appearance of the lock screen’s elements:
Options include changing the appearance, size, opacity, and margins of the circular icon used to unlock the device, enabling or disabling a theme option for the date header where you can choose a color theme, choose an opacity level, and more. You will also be choose a custom font, font color, and font offset for the date and time, and set an opacity level and margin amount for the camera and unlock icon and other application icons.
BuddyLock is a very feature-filled jailbreak tweak that focuses on those liking to have absolute power and control over what things look like. With all of the options the tweak gives you, any creative mind can make one heck of a cool-looking lock screen that no one else has.
The tweak is compatible with both iOS 5 and iOS 6 and can be had for just 99¢ in Cydia's BigBoss repository.
