If you liked the concept developed by Ocean Observations that showed how a homescreen expose feature can be introduced on the iPhone to let users sift through several iPhone apps scattered on their iPhone's homescreen with just a few taps then the good news is that iPhone developer Steve Troughton-Smith has released his jailbreak app called Orbit on Cydia Store for jailbroken iPhone users.
As mentioned in our earlier post, Steve Troughton-Smith has already developed some cool jailbreak iPhone apps like Stacks for iPhone. He was the one who had figured out a way to enable Emoji icons using a simple hack and also had discovered a hack to enable tethering in iPhone OS 3.0 beta.
He loved the concept developed by Ocean Observations so much that he has developed a jailbreak iPhone app called Orbit that brings homescreen Expose feature to the iPhone.
You can checkout the demo video of Orbit below:
Though the concept video and the demo of the iPhone app looked cool, I was a little skeptical of using it as I felt it would be difficult to figure out an iPhone app in the homescreen thumbnails as the iPhone app icons would be very small.
But surprisingly I found it to be quite functional (if I remembered the icon of an iPhone app). There was some lag in displaying the thumbnails of the iPhone homescreens the first time, but after that it was quite quick.
The initial version seems to have a bug where it seems to cache the homescreen thumbnails to avoid the lag, so if you move the iPhone apps, the change in positions don't get reflected in the homescreen thumbnails. The only workaround I could figure out was to restart the iPhone for Orbit to refresh the homescreen thumbnails.
If you’re looking for a quicker way to launch iPhone apps and don’t like to search for an iPhone app using Spotlight for iPhone then you should definitely checkout Orbit. You can download it on your jailbroken iPhone from Cydia Store for $1.99.
Please don’t forget to drop us a line to share your feedback about Orbit in the comments.
Thanks TimW for the tip!
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NOT EVEN TRAIL VERSION VERY BAD
At first I thought it would be hard to identify the icons, but they are easily recognisable.
I toyed with the idea and thought give it a go, purchased via paypal then installed. Rock wouldn't let me get past the description page.
This concept is so easy to use but after reorganising your app layout, perform a respring or a crash 'Can' happen.
I tried a basic test against my other 3G using swipe and this one with Orbit, and Orbit IS quicker to locate the page, tried it against spotlight and spotlight is just an embuggerance (anyone know how to disable spotlight?? I hate it)
I've used S. T-S's apps before and can say they are always user friendly, shame he gave up on Stacks tho.
If your looking for a faster 3 touch app search, you'll not go far wrong with Orbit
really.? 2 dollars for this.? ill just stick with spotlight…
honestly i didn't wanna buy it, but i did, and its pretty amazing. its really fast and super practical. i love it. its worth 2 buxs.
$2 For this?!?! Yes!! Definite $2 for this! I'd have payed $10 for this! Whassup people, can't we just recognize talent and encourage it? Let's see $2 for this or for another flatulence app?
To me the equation is simple: I am always on the lookout for cool apps, hence my making the rounds on a few iphone sites. When I find one I download it and if it does what it says it does, I pay for it. in the case of Orbit, I just bought on faith, and on the good review in this site. I like the ecosystem: Developer makes app. Reviewer reviews app. I download/buy app. Developer makes a living. Reviewer makes a living (I hope). I get my cool app and I go back to beating my wife. Everybody's happy!
P.S Beat your wife every night, if you don't know why, she will!
damn you are cheap as hell
The problem are not the 2$. The problem is that I don't want to pay for a app which works only with jb phone. That's mean, if in the future (for a reason or another) the JB will not be possible, or if I will just mantain my iphone without jb, I payed 2$ for nothing…
Works great I love it.
Let's say that in the future you can't run jb anymore; at the end of the day, it is only TWO DOLLARS! TWO DOLLARS! You'll probably spend that on a can of coke which you will consume in five minutes. COME ON! TWO DOLLARS! If you have an iPhone, I'm sure you can afford TWO FREEEKIN DOLLARS!
like kDub said, you are cheap as hell. Like I said to Renato below, IT'S TWO DOLLARS! How cheap would an app have to be before you were impressed by this? 10c? I like buying cheap apps too, but think about it, if everyone complains about how expensive an app is, when it is only $2, why would a developer get out of bed and try to write the code? They'd make more money working at McDonald's! Would you rather good app developers get paid for making good apps, or get paid for flipping burgers.
u can think what you prefer: my opinion is that if i spend 2 dollar, is only for application with guarantee (guarantee = official, which will be supported in the future fw release too)
And I dont think I'm the only one thinking that…
theres too many problems for it to be released as a paid app , he should have done some free beta testing , then released it as a paid app once the public approved , apparently hes not good wnough to get on the app store , what makes him think he can charge