iOS’ App Switcher, love it or hate it, leaves a lot of wiggle room for improvement. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise to anyone that iOS developer Alessandro Chiarlitti set out to improve it with the launch of a new jailbreak tweak called Gesto.

In a nutshell, Gesto augments your iOS handset’s App Switcher with powerful new features and integrations with the primary goal of making multitasking easier. And let us just say, based on our mind-blowing hands-on experience, this isn’t a tweak you’ll want to miss.

Gesto does several things to make the App Switcher better, with some of the most remarkable things being:

  • Integrate Control Center into the App Switcher, allowing you to access shortcuts one of two ways
  • Transform the Home Bar’s App Switcher gesture into an App Switcher + Control Center gesture to make Control Center more comfortable to reach with one hand
  • Lock specific applications so that they can’t be closed via the App Switcher’s traditional swipe-up gesture
  • Quick access to handy system shortcuts, including clear all App Switcher apps, respring the device, unlock all locked apps, access Control Center, and move to next Now Playing song, and battery information
  • And much more…

As you’ll notice in the screenshot examples above, you can choose whether Control Center integrates into the App Switcher in a side-by-side fashion or with the App Switcher cards residing just above the Control Center modules. Both are snazzy, although we’re partial to the Multi-Side option, as it displays more at a glance.

As for locking apps, you can do so by sliding down on any app icon card in the App Switcher until a lock icon appears, then continue dragging down until the lock closes. You can also slide to the left to reveal the system shortcuts:

Once you install Gesto, you’ll find a preference pane in the Settings app where you can configure the tweak to your liking:

Here, you can:

  • Toggle Gesto on or off on demand
  • Choose between Multi-Side or Side-by-Side display options
    • Configure settings for Multi-Side selection
    • Configure settings for Side-by-Side selection
  • Configure Quick Actions
  • Configure App Locking

When tapping on the preference panes for the Multi-Side or Side-by-Side selections, you’ll gain access to the following options:

Adjust Multi-Side Settings

  • Choose the background style:
  • Enable or disable headers
  • Enable or disable alternative look
  • Enable or disable paging
  • Manage Control Center modules that appear

Adjust Side-by-Side Settings

  • Toggle haptic feedback on or off
  • Prioritize the App Switcher page over the Control Center page
  • Enable or disable headers

At the end of Gesto’s primary preference pane, you’ll find the Quick Actions and App Lock cells. In these pages, you’ll gain access to the following options:

Quick Actions

  • Enable or disable Quick Actions
  • Manage the Quick Actions that appear here:
    • Respring
    • Close all App Switcher apps
    • Control Center shortcut
    • Unlock all locked apps
    • Play the next song in your Now Playing queue
    • Battery
  • Configure a delay that must transpire while holding a quick action before it activates
  • Toggle haptic feedback on or off
  • Enable or disable dark mode

App Lock

  • Toggle application locking on or off
  • Automatically lock applications that are playing audio
  • Prevent locked apps from being closed with the ‘close all’ shortcut
  • Enable or disable haptic feedback

There isn’t’ a respring button anywhere in the preference pane, and from what we can tell, a respring isn’t necessary to save the changes to make to the preference pane.

We particularly enjoy having the ability to lock apps from being killed in the App Switcher, especially given how useful this can be for preventing Now Playing apps from being closed accidentally. Moreover, having fast access to system actions is a beautiful luxury, and it’s almost a shame that Apple wouldn’t implement something this useful right out of the box.

If you’re interested in trying Gesto for yourself, then you can download it for $3.99 from the Dynastic Repo repository in Cydia or Sileo. The tweak is compatible with jailbroken iOS 11 and iOS 12 devices and should work with all notched and non-notched handsets.

Are you impressed with the features that Gesto brings to the table? Let us know in the comments section below.