IMG_0159LockInfo has been a mainstay on my iPhone’s Lockscreen for a few months now and it’s creator David Ashman (aka @Stimpy5050) has been working on a major update for awhile and it has finally been released. He maintains a good connection with the jailbreak community through his twitter, and has even commented on this blog before, showing he is listening to what people are saying. LockInfo has proven itself to be very popular due to it’s combination of being easy to use and setup while still having enough features and customization options to match what people are looking for in a lockscreen extension.

The new features of LockInfo 2.0:

  • Push notifications on your lockscreen listed
  • Preview your emails from the lockscreen without unlocking
  • Delete your emails after previewing
  • Mark As Read your emails, SMS messages, and Push notifications right from the lockscreen
  • Manually refresh your email, weather, and twitter plugins
  • Privacy settings to hide email subjects, email previews, or SMS message text
  • Adjustable font size
  • Performance and stability improvements

The plugins that are included are:

  • Mail – see your email
  • Calendar – see a listing of the next events in your calendar
  • SMS – new SMS messages
  • Phone – missed calls or voicemails
  • Push Notifications – listing of Push notifications received

Available optional plugins:

  • Clock – adds the current date and time with a collapsible calendar
  • Todo – integration with either 2Do, Appigo Todo, or Things
  • WeatherIcon – integrates with WeatherIcon for live updating forecast for your location
  • Twitter – lists your timeline and updates on a specified interval

Other recommended packages to have:

  • Lockscreen Clock Hide – goes great with the above mentioned Clock plugin to hide the stock time
  • Lockscreen Dim Delay Control – made by the same author to control the amount of time your lockscreen stays open before dimming
  • Lockinfo Icons – replaces the stock Lockinfo icons for the different plugins with more stock iPhone app lookings ones(can be seen in my screenshots)
  • Lockscreen Mini Slider – smaller slider, more room for LockInfo (can be see in my screenshots)

Customization Options:

  • show on Lockscreen, show on Homescreen, or show on both
  • order that the plugins show up in
  • scrolling
  • extend all the way to bottom (useful if you have use the mini slider mentioned above)
  • block popups (stock popup alerts for SMS, Push, etc)
  • font size
  • collapsible sections
  • hide empty sections
  • transparency
  • can be customized with themes (though plugin support depends on the theme)

Screenshot Tour:

The 5 stock plugins, collapsed and expanded (notice the new refresh and X mark as read buttons):

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Previewing emails, basic text and HTML:

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Added the Clock and WeatherIcon plugins, collapsed and expanded:

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Added the Twitter plugin, then enabled as homescreen

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I really like the new way that emails and other messages can be marked as read with a simple tap of the X button. It saves me time from having to open it or even just preview it. I was previously using Elert for this and don’t feel the need to keep it enabled anymore.

Having a list of Push notifications is great. I am currently using GRiP (my post on that here) which provides me with a list of the notifications grouped by the app they come from but having all my notifications in one place is a nicer solution. I just wish that you could open the app that the Push came from by tapping it.

The new manual refresh, privacy settings, and adjustable font sizes are nice to have.

One of the bugs that was fixed was how LockInfo would sometimes not show up on the lockscreen. You would have to unlock and lock again to get it to show up some of the time. That is a very welcome fix as it was probably the biggest gripe I had with LockInfo. As for performance improvements I didn’t really notice much as it already ran perfectly fast in the first place.

Missing / Wanted features or plugins:

  • To be able to tap on links while previewing emails and open them
  • To be able to tap on links in the Twitter timeline and open them
  • To be able to tap on Push notifications to open the corresponding app
  • Facebook plugin
  • RSS Reader plugin that syncs with Google Reader
  • the Calendar in the Clock plugin
  • some sort of application badge plugin, how great would it be to be able to show the number of updates available from the badge on Cydia for example
  • support for themes that can’t use non-native plugins (if possible? for example ame235′s teehanlax theme doesn’t support previewing emails)

Apparently the Plugin API is going to be released in the coming future so hopefully some of the above features can become a reality.

I have used the beta for awhile now and it’s now completely won me over from any other competitors (Intelliscreen, Smartscreen, etc). All in all a great lockscreen add-on that makes the iPhone’s lockscreen what it should be. This is the kind of thing that Apple should be implementing in OS 4.0. Don’t hold your breath. LockInfo 2.0 is $5 and is worth every penny.

Any thoughts? Comment below.

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Related posts:

  1. Great New LockInfo (iPhone lockscreen extension) Theme by ame235 (emulates teehan+lax)
  2. Top 15 Best Jailbroken Apps for the iPhone
  3. LockInfo – great iPhone Lockscreen improvement
  4. Circuitous – another great multitasking app for the iPhone
  5. GRiP – Improving a jailbroken iPhone’s Push/Email/SMS/etc Notification System