ProSwitcher iPhone Jailbreak Multitasking UI Goes 1.0

By Rene Ritchie
last updated

ProSwitcher [github link], the webOS "Cards"-style flickable, flick-to-close-able multitasking interface for Jailbroken iPhones running Backgrounder that we posted about last week has just gone primetime with version 1.0. You can find it in Cydia.

If you try it out, multitask us up a comment and let us know how it performs.

Rene Ritchie
Rene Ritchie
Contributor

Rene Ritchie is one of the most respected Apple analysts in the business, reaching a combined audience of over 40 million readers a month. His YouTube channel, Vector, has over 90 thousand subscribers and 14 million views and his podcasts, including Debug, have been downloaded over 20 million times. He also regularly co-hosts MacBreak Weekly for the TWiT network and co-hosted CES Live! and Talk Mobile. Based in Montreal, Rene is a former director of product marketing, web developer, and graphic designer. He's authored several books and appeared on numerous television and radio segments to discuss Apple and the technology industry. When not working, he likes to cook, grapple, and spend time with his friends and family.

35 Comments
  • Don't see any difference. It's still just as amazing as before. Can't believe it's still free.
  • Yes it's still amazing, and the performens is very good and i like the look of it
  • This is one of the several features I am going to miss when I get my new 3GS shortly... Tethered jailbreak is a big NO for me. Still hoping for a miracle to come.
  • You can jailbreak the 3Gs you know...?
  • @mist1
    I would buy a refurb from AT&T.com if I were you. You may get the older style 3gs without the new bootrom.
  • Very happy! Using this with my new 3GS. Superb performance!
  • This is The Balls
  • You can jailbreak the 3gs using pwnage and not have to use the tethered jailbreak. It's a little more work than blackra1n but it is higher quality and non-tethered. I don't think you can unlock with pwnage though. But if you just need jailbreak, I would highly recommend pwnage over blackra1n.
  • @Joe
    Agreed, prob the best bet. I got a refurb 32gb about a month ago and it was the old iboot. My understanding is that the refurbs dont get updated to the new iboot, only the new off the line.
  • And what do you think about battery life? It's worse with proswitcher?
  • I got the new 3GS jailbroken with Blackra1n and it's not tethered...and Proswitcher works great!!!
  • Did anyone else experience problems with memory leakage with the previous versions? I did and had to uninstall the alpha versions. Otherwise a great multitasking experience.
  • Apple should hire these guys and work officially. I am an ex-Blackberry user and have been longing for Multi-Tasking options on my iPhone 3G S. This is great and the best part is they kept it free! If non-Apple employee's can do this with iPhone then Apple needs to re-think their current 3.0 base and come out with a serious upgrade.
  • @Speedy:
    Yes, of course backgrounding apps affects battery life... but it's so easy to swipe cards away with ProSwitcher when you don't need them running. It's very convenient and effortless to manage only those apps which are needed at any given time. And when the battery gets too low, simply stop running apps in the background.
    It's just fantastic to have it when it's needed.
  • runs surprisingly well :) even on my 3g.
    as far as a hack for the new 3gs bootloader, its being worked on and rumor has it there is a way that someone has got but they appear to be holding onto it (dev team style) incase apple fix it for 4.0, but whats the point! so they are holding onto a hole which apple may well find anyway (with their new security staff) in case they plug it. in the meantime new 3gs and ipt3g owners are stuffed.
    madness.
  • Still works great. Now I actually background apps more often since this is more practical. If Apple doesn't make something like this standard in their next iPhone, I think they will definitely fall behind.
  • I like Kirikae for multitasking better than Proswitcher. You can switch tasks directly from an open app and kill tasks, as needed.
    I like the UI that Proswitcher provides over zkirikses list format. I do not like that it has to be activated from the springboard.
    Are there more advanced ways to use Proswitcher?
  • Disregard my previous comment. I found the configuration options. This is a very slick tool. I removed Kirikae in favor of Proswitcher!
  • Simply the best way to manage your backgrounded apps to date! And it's free. :D
  • I had problems with the initial version and Facebook. Every time I locked my phone and left Facebook open, the phone would freeze in Facebook and not allow me to get out of the app without respringing. It worked great other than that, and I would really like to start using it again. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you use this app in conjunction with backgrounder so everything will stay running right? And did anyone else have that problem?
  • I don't see it anywhere in cydia.. What's the source?
  • 99 friend requests? Someone's popular...
  • The source is booleanmagic.com/repo
  • Thanks, it was not showing up there at all or in the bigboss repo until I uninstalled it from the place I originally got it from. I just have to say this version BLOWS! The betas ran soo much smoother. 1.0 lags & is extremely slow :(..
  • Wait! Nevermind, the corner radius option was causing the lag. Turn that off for a huge speed increase.
  • Hey proswitcher also installed the backgrounder app, do i need it or can i delete it?
  • @Mctui
    you need backgrounder to actually run the apps in the background, proswitvher is just the feature missing from backgrounder to make it the best app ever :)
  • Thx will^^
    but what foes PS actually do? Backgrounder lets apps run in the background and ps does this switching between apps thing ?? XD
  • Works great, but could use a nice tutorial...
  • this fulfills one of the few remaining requests I had for my iphone. It is now one step shy of perfect. Now if I could just find some decent cydget home screens...
  • Had it on my 3G but removed it a week ago because of the limited capabilities of the 3G (RAM being the biggest limitation).
    Did any 3G use see an improvement over the last version?
  • i need to disable the swipe activation methods. i enabled it on the previous version and now it's not an option. anyone have any suggestions?
  • I love what this program allows you to do. I am fairly new to jailbreaking but so far I digg it!!!
  • It's great but you need to keep Mail app on or else you will not get your push email until you open the Mail app. It is a big nuisance. Any ideas to correct this situation?
  • this is a most have, my top rated for performance + aparience, even when i forgot the name, ive been hours looking for it ^^