Modern-day iOS devices come equipped with advanced forms of biometric authentication right out of the box, such as Face ID or Touch ID, but you can still resort to an alphanumeric or numeric passcode if you wanted to.

It might seem counterproductive to do such a thing given just how fast and zippy Face ID and Touch ID have become, but a new jailbreak tweak release called Scribble by iOS developer Boo is sure to make you actually want to use your passcode interface over biometric authentication.

If you haven’t already inferred from the tweak’s name, Scribble effectively lets you draw a doodle to unlock your iPhone or iPad rather than entering a pin number or alphanumeric password. That said, it makes authenticating yourself a lot more fun.

With Scribble, you can unlock your iPhone or iPad with virtually any type of drawing that you want. Upon setting a unique drawing that you’d like to identify with, you can draw it on the Lock screen to prove that you’re actually you, like so:

Scribble adds a preference pane to the Settings app where you can configure the tweak to your liking:

Here, you can:

  • Toggle Scribble on or off on demand
  • Choose between default or paint stroke styles
  • Adjust the stroke size via a slider (less means more room and finer details)
  • Choose a custom paint color
  • Choose between expand and highlight unlock animations
  • Enable or disable fast unlock
  • Configure a custom highlight color
  • Cancel the drawing to display the numeric passcode entry interface instead
  • Disable the device after a certain number of failed attempts
  • Configure the number of allowed failed attempts
  • Choose the tweak’s recognition strictness: low, medium, or high
  • Change/configure your Scribble password
  • Reset your settings to their defaults

The developer provides a respring button at the bottom of the preference pane that you can use to save your changes on demand. Alternatively, you can tap on the Apply button at the top right of the preference pane for the same effect. Failing to respring could result in unsaved changes.

Personally, I haven’t used a drawing-based jailbreak tweak since before the iOS 6 era, and that’s due to the lack of such tweaks existing; that aside, I’ve always been a fan of them. It’s worth noting that Face ID and Touch ID are still faster means of unlocking your handset, but Scribble is more fun.

If you’re interested in trying Scribble for yourself, then you can download it from Cydia’s Packix repository for $1.49. The tweak supports all jailbroken iOS 11 and 12 devices.

What do you think about drawing pictures to unlock your handset? Let us know in the comments section below, but don’t tell us what you’re drawing… for obvious reasons…