Apple has done amazing things to bring native iPhone apps in line with the latest design trends, but the Phone app is starting to show its age. In fact, it hasn’t had any aesthetic changes in a long time, so the jailbreak community often tries to make their own improvements.
A new jailbreak tweak called Novus from iOS developer nicho1asdev is one such improvement, as it modernizes the iPhone Phone app to really look and feel like it belongs to the current version of iOS.
So what do you get with Novus? As you’ll immediately notice, the tweak does away with the old tab-based interface and replaces it with a more unified user interface that puts everything you need right in front of you at a glance.
The interface combines a list of recent calls in the middle with your favorite contacts at the top and a search bar at the bottom that you can open to reveal your full list of contacts. There are two different buttons on the navigation bar, including a voicemail button for checking missed messages and a phone button that brings up the dial pad.
Novus fully supports 3D Touch/Haptic Touch for supported options such as your contacts. When you do this, you’ll be suggested ways to contact based on what you’ve saved for that contact, such as calling them, sending them a FaceTim, or texting/iMessing them. If you’ve saved third-party communication methods with other apps, they may be offered instead.
Novus doesn’t have any customization options, so it’s one of those “what you see is what you get”customizations, and we’re fine with that. The developer has clearly thought of the features they think you’ll use most and incorporated them into a universal interface that doesn’t have the archaic tab-based interface we’ve been looking at for over a decade.
If you’re interested in trying Novus for yourself, then it’s available for $2.49 from the Havoc repository through your favorite package management app. If you already have a BigSurCenter, the developer gives you a 20% discount on Novus, bringing the price down to $2. The tweak supports jailbroken iOS 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16 devices.
Do you plan to update the native Phone app on your iPhone with the new Novus jailbreak tweak? Let us know in the comments section below.