I’ve never personally enjoyed the badge-centric aspect of iOS’ notification system, and with that in mind, I’m always looking to try new jailbreak tweaks that present novel ways of communicating when an app has a missed or pending notification that needs attention.

One of the latest releases in this department is a tweak called Firefly by iOS developer Sean Caissie. It replaces the standard application icon badges with something that’s both easier on the eyes and a bit more pronounced: a colorized underglow.

If you’re wondering what we mean by a colorized glow, just have a look at the screenshot examples above. In them, you’ll notice that some of the application icons on the Home screen have a glowing background.

Firefly is fully customizable, and after you’ve installed the tweak, you’ll find a dedicated preference pane in the Settings app where you can configure the tweak to your liking:

Here, you can:

  • Enable or disable Firefly on demand
  • Hide or show the application icon badges along with the glow effect
  • Choose between using a pre-defined color or an adaptive color that matches the icon
  • Choose your selected color from a pre-defined list

The developer includes a Respring button at the bottom of the preference pane that you can use to save your changes on demand.

One thing we’d like to note is that while pre-defined color lists can be more convenient to users due to having pre-selected colors, it limits configurability. We’d have preferred to see a color picker for this instance, which would allow users to choose colors in between those that the developer provides out of the box. Apart from that, we really like the concept behind Firefly because it grabs your attention without cluttering up your Home screen with a bunch of unsightly little red dots.

Firefly should work with all jailbroken iOS 11 and 12 devices, and if you’re interested in trying Firefly for yourself, then you can download the tweak for $0.99 from the Packix repository in Cydia or Sileo. After the first week, the tweak’s price will double to $1.99, so get it while it’s hot!

Are you a fan of Firefly’s alternative means of grabbing your attention about incoming notifications? Let us know in the comments section below.