Jailbreak tweaks to improve iOS search
Whenever we need some piece of information, we search for it on the internet. And this happens on a daily basis so it is fair to say that searching has become a daily activity in this age of information. And it is not only an activity for our desktops; we frequently do it on our smartphones too. You probably noticed that searching on your iOS smartphone, while doing its job, is not as good an experience as on Android. And no wonder, since Android is Google’s child, the company that developed the best and by far the most used search engine on this planet.
However, if your iPhone happens to be jailbroken your experience can be just as good as that of Android users when searching. There are many jailbreak tweaks that improve search so obviously there are many options to choose from. You can find improvements for voiced search, for Spotlight and many more. That is why we made this list for you, a list with five of the best search improving jailbreak tweaks you can find for a jailbroken device.
WebLeaps
You are probably familiar with custom searches as they are not a recent thing, especially when it comes to desktop computers. A custom search will allow you to make a search shortcut aimed at a certain website. So for example, you could create a custom search shortcut for iosdoc.com and search our site’s content very easy, pressing a few keys. As we said, for desktop computers this is not a new concept and for Mac OS X for example there are apps like Alfred that streamlines searching.
WebLeaps (which of course requires a jailbroken iOS device) allows you to to search the content of whichever internet website you desire, on the small screen of your personal iOS device, via custom searches. Also, with a bit of editing know how, you can setup your own custom search shortcuts. WebLeaps is compatible with Safari and Spotlight too. Another thing worth mentioning is that this jailbreak tweak won’t add any new icons to the Home Screen of your iPhone (so the options can be configured from the Settings app). This tweak can be bought from the Cydia Store for $1.99.
QuickGoogle
We already mentioned how searching on desktop computers is more efficient thanks to programs like Alfred (which makes searching very easy and efficient). The iPhone does not have an app like Alfred, but Quick Google is a jailbreak tweak that could be described as be the second best thing. Its name tells you exactly what it does: it lets you make a Google search whenever you want from anywhere, on your iPhone (well, any jailbroken iOS device actually). It uses an activator to open the search notification box from anywhere at anytime, regardless what you are doing on your iOS device. It is easy and very efficient: whether you are watching a video, reading a book or playing a game, if you want to quickly search for a particular information, you can do so with Quick Google.
All you need to do is download and install the tweak, then go into ‘Activator’ and choose your preferred activation method. For example you can choose the ‘shake device’ Activator so that whenever you shake your iOS device, it will stat a Google search. Can’t get any easier to use. As with WebLeaps, no new icons are added to your device’s Home Screen and the activation method can be set in the Settings app in activator settings. Quick Google is free and as we mentioned it is a very easy way to Google search on iOS, at any given time. We need to mention that a similar tweak, but which allows more searching options (like eBay, Cydia, YouTube and many others) is ActiSearch so you might want to try it.
WeeSearch Pro
WeeSearch Pro is, unlike other search enhancing jailbreak tweaks, a tweak that uses the Notification Center to make all kinds of searches. After activating it, WeeSearch Pro opens a search bar inside the Notification Center, essentially transforming the Notification Center into a hub for searches (it will also show you the search results inside the Notification Center, making it autonomous). It comes with a few predefined sites in which to search for information, these being YouTube, Wikipedia, Amazon, eBay, Google, Wolfram Alpha, Yahoo, Bing and Google Pics. If these are not enough to cover the vast majority of your information needs, i don’t know what other selection of sites would be enough. But if you do know and if these simply aren’t enough for you, you can add more as WeeSearch Pro allows user defined search engines to be added via the “Manage Search Engines” option (from the preferences of your iOS device). The tweak comes with a lot of of options and settings (related to the way it functions, to the way it looks or changing custom searches related settings). The WeeSearch Pro tweak requires a jailbroken device and iOS 5 (or later) and it can be bought for $1.49 from the BigBoss repo. It also comes with a free back up option that allows the back up of user defined search engines.
NowNow
If you own an iOS device chances are you know what Siri is. You might have also heard about Voice Search, which is a Google product that well… i guess it is pretty obvious what id does: searches Google via your own voice. Well if you have a jailbroken iPhone, you might be interested in finding out about a little tweak called NowNow, you can use Google’s Voice Search. Voice Search is really impressive and it appears to be performing much better than Siri, but Google’s Voice Search cannot be used by way of holding down the Home button, as you would engage Siri. Enter NowNow. You need Google’s Voice Search app installed on your device, of course, and NowNow which will enable you to launch Google Voice Search the same way you would launch Siri. You must understand though, that being a tweak and not an official incorporation, there will be some limits – for example, you won’t be able to open apps with it. But if you would like to have Google’s Voice Search capabilities on your iPhone (which happens to be jailbroken), you can get Nownow on Cydia for free.
SLightEnhancerSearch
If you thing this jailbreak tweak has a silly name, well, we do too. But its name isn’t as important as what it does, so what does it do? Well first of all, how do you like Spotlight? If the answer is not ‘i love it’ (and if that is the case, we know what you mean) then you might want to reconsider your feelings towards Spotlight after installing the SlightEnhancerSearch tweak. This jailbreak tweak enhances Spotlight, supplementing it with a lot more searching options (Cydia, Twitter, Amazon, Facebook, Apple Store, YouTube, iBooks, just to name a few of them). To enable these searching options, go to the Settings app and from there choose the slight enhance search tweak to enable the options (don’t forget to apply the changes); that’s it – the next time you will use Spotlight, the new search options will be enabled. It’s a pretty useful tweak, isn’t it? You can get it for free on Cydia, so if you want a slightly enhanced search, grab it from Cydia.
Final words
We hope that you will find these tweaks useful. Searching is a very frequent activity in the online world; whether you just want to find some information or to learn something or to find a video or maybe find out the lyrics of that new song you’ve heard on the radio, searching is a big part the world wide web experience. That is why having at your disposal powerful and flexible searching tools is a necessity today. When it comes to desktop computers that is not a problem, as you have at your disposal a wide variety of powerful searching engines, but for the growing world of smartphones, the selection does not offer the same variety nor the same quality. That though will slowly change with more powerful apps being developed and with this article we hope we have brought you closer to having the same powerful and flexible searching options on your smartphones as you have on your desktop computers.
