I don’t know about you guys but it seems like FOREVER since we wrote that the Element lockscreen concept was going to become reality. Well, it looks as though it has finally made it’s way into Cydia. A few days ago, I was perusing (yes, perusing) Cydia and to my astonishment what did I see… Element. At first I thought it was a theme or maybe some random look-a-like but after some further exploration I found it to be the real deal. However, I’m going to warn you right away, don’t get too excited this is definitely a first release.

The lockscreen was released in Cydia as a cydget. For those of you who do not know what Cydget is, it is “framework for managing lock screen plugins.” Which means, like most cydgets, it runs a little slow. Once you install the app (you will also want to install the Cydget ‘app’ if you do not already have it installed), you will then need to go into your stock Settings application under the Cydget option and tap on Element to activate it on your loackscreen. Once you have done that, you can go into your stock Settings and find the Element option where you will see some basic Setting for the Element lockscreen.

In the Settings for Element you have the ability to allows the options on the lockscreen to expand/contract by tapping on the header (a must for me). You will also find some basic settings for each option on the lockscreen; Weather, Missed Calls, Calendar Events, Unread Emails, SMS, Facebook and Stocks.

Now, a few things about how the lockscreen actually runs. It’s slow… pretty slow. I also noticed that it doesn’t update extrememly accurately. The weather tends to be decently close to correct as well as the Calendar and Text Messages. However, I did find the Email, Facebook and Missed Calls can be a little behind. It can also be a little confusing because it will list your last three missed calls whether you have already seen them or not. However if it is a new missed call, that you haven’t seen, it will be highlighted yellow. The same is true for text messages.

The lockscreen does have a few other useful options such as the ability to swipe on a missed call and call that number directly from your lockscreen. You can also tap on a text message and it will open your stock text messaging application to that specific text message. There is a catch. If you have a passcode on your device, you are still able to ‘swipe to call’ which opens your stock phone application without having to enter the passcode. It does bring you back out to the lockscreen once the call is finished but, if you are a stickler on security, you may want to turn off the Allow Dialing option in the Settings. The text message tap does not work if you have a passcode on your device… even if you have the option turned on in the Settings.

One of my favorite features in the ability to tap on the weather widget on the lockscreen and have it switch between the cities you have set-up in the stock Weather application (this works best if the AutoRotrate option is turned off in the Settings).

Overall, I love the look of the lockscreen. It gives me the basic information I am looking for in a lockscreen mod and it runs pretty smoothly. Now, if we could just get it to load faster… like a lot faster.

Element is available through Saurik’s source.

ScreenShots

“Our iPhone lockscreen will be called Element. Fingers are crossed for a beta next week.” – via @gteehan

I don’t know about you guys but, I would love to have the perfect lock screen mod! I’m currently using LockInfo and like it. I can’t wait to check out Element… it looks like it is going to be pretty sweet.

Below is some info about the mod via the dev’s blog.

It seems the screens we shared of an alternative home screen for the iPhone created some buzz. We had no intention of taking it any further than a blog post but we figured this was something worth seeing through.

We got in touch with Jay Freeman a.k.a saurik. He’s the guy behind Cydia, an application for jailbroken iPhones that allows you to browse and download apps outside of actual app store. He’s crazy smart, passionate and geeky — three things we love here at T+L. Jay is going to be instrumental in making this happen.

If you haven’t already figured it out, getting this on your phone will require you to jailbreak it. That may not be an appealing option for many, but for the 2 million plus out there who have already done it and for those that are comfortable with doing it, this can be a reality.

The app and the underlying technology to make it happen are still in development so what comes out the other side will differ from what we originally proposed. The biggest change will initially be that it will render only on the lock screen. We went down this road for a number of reasons, primarily because of its relative ease of implementation, though there’s nothing easy about it. Jay is creating a framework to write custom lock screens called Cydget. Our concept will act as the guinea pig.

No word on an actual release date yet due to a last minute crash bug, but from what we hear it’s not far off. We’ll make an official announcement once it’s available. You can follow @teehanlax @gteehan and @saurik if you’re looking for more detail since we tend to tweet about this stuff more frequently than we blog about it.

Read the original post HERE.