BetterFolders takes your app folders to the next level

If you are an avid user of Apple products, chances are that you have lots of apps installed on your iOS device. And while folders have long been an ideal solution for keeping your Home screen organized, they have a few shortcomings that a new jailbreak tweak calledBetterFolders aims to solve. The useful extension serves three purposes: enables pinch to close for folders, allows nested folders, and brings 4×4 folder layout to the iPad… 

BetterFolders works as advertised. Once installed, the all-familiar “pinch to close” multitouch gesture can be used to close an active folder. All you have to do is make a pinching motion with two fingers when you have a folder open, and it will immediately exit to the Home screen. In fact, I found that even a single tap on the area above and below the folder also produces the same action. The only downside is that it’s a rather sensitive feature, so you might accidentally exit your folders more often than you desire.

Additionally, when a folder is open, you can hold down on an icon to enable so-called “wiggle mode” and create folders within folders — yes, you could have an app hidden within a hierarchy of twelve folders if you really wanted to. I’m not sure why you would want to put an app that far out of reach, except for the infamous Newsstand perhaps, but tell me you weren’t going to try it anyways just out of curiosity.

Last, iPad users will notice that folders take up a little more screen space because of this tweak. BetterFolders increases the traditional 3×3 folder layout with nine app icons per page to a larger 4×4 grid with sixteen app icons per page. I don’t have a jailbroken iPad on hand to test that out at this moment, but it does make sense to take advantage of the extra real estate offered by the 9.7-inch and 7.9-inch displays on the iPad and iPad mini respectively.

BetterFolders has no additional options to configure, although anyone knowledgable enough can add preferences or customize the tweak thanks to developer ManzoPower making it open source on GitHub. You’ll need an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch running iOS 7 or later for the tweak, which is a free download on Cydia in the BigBoss repository.