When the iPhone 4 hit the shelves last year, it was the first device in Apple’s line up to feature an LED flash light. It was immediately recognized that this LED can double very usefully as a capable flashlight for navigating those treacherous stairs at night, or finding the keys that you’d just dropped, and what not. Indeed, the first jailbreak application to come out was a flashlight app – signifying how useful this feature was considered.
Now, with the final release of iOS 5 looming a few weeks ahead, another feature building anticipations is the device getting a ‘virtual dedicated camera button’ in the form of a lockscreen control, giving users the ability to launch the camera app at a moment’s notice by touching a button on the lockscreen. Again, this is something to look forward to because chances are, it will help you capture those rare moments that otherwise went flying by because you kept fumbling with trying to launch the camera app on your device.
Jailbreak developer Aaron Wright decided he didn’t want to wait until iOS 5 reaches the general public, and so we find FlashCam on Cydia adding both these features to the current iOS for the iPhone 4.
Obviously, for this Cydia tweak to work, you’ll need an iPhone 4 with a built-in flash. This tweak adds two buttons on your iPhone’s lockscreen, allowing one-touch launch of the iPhone 4 LED flashlight and the Camera app itself for quick and easy snapping. While the iPhone 4 LED flashlight adds convenience, it is the Take Photo feature that exhibits the true power of FlashCam, because it doesn’t stay limited to the stock Camera app of the iOS – you can choose from any alternate camera app available on the AppStore, including the likes of Instagram and Camera+ among others.
Configurable settings for FlashCam can be accessed under iPhone’s native Settings app, under the Extensions category.
There are a number of customizable parameters that you can configure for better control over the tweak’s behavior. Other than the basic Enable/Disable toggle, you can choose which camera application to launch, and whether to fire the camera up in Photo mode or Video. Another useful feature is Passcode Bypass, which allows you to launch the Camera app even if there is a passcode lock in place. What’s even better is that the device will get auto-locked again as soon as the Camera app is closed, ensuring privacy protection for the rest of the device.
The list of camera apps supported is not definitive, and depends on the alternates present on your iPhone.
More configuration options include on-screen camera controls, setting the iPhone to auto-lock when done with using camera, enabling/disabling lock sounds and to use a background image behind the camera buttons. An update released today also allows choosing themes – default and minimal being the only options for now.
FlashCam is a highly recommended, highly useful tweak that adds two desired features literally to your fingertips. The tweak is available from the BigBoss repository in Cydia, for the most affordable price of free. Let us know what you think of it, and spread the love by clicking the sharing buttons below.
