SBSettings Processes Widget

Author: BigBoss  //  Category: Apps

Update v1.1b: Added app icons for apps that are running. See updated screenshots below.

Today I released v1.0b of the Processes Widget for SBSettings. This is a task killer widget that displays tasks and lets you kill them (from within any app).

To use, just bring up SBSettings, select “Processes”, then delete the task you want to kill. If you have SBSettings 1.07 or newer, you can see the available memory is freed up within a second or two.

To make this more usable for the masses, this is not like a full “top” app. Only tasks you launched from springboard and may want to kill are included. Apps like top show every process on the system. But you most likely do not know what any of those are nor should you be killing any of them. Instead, this takes the approach to be a bit more friendly and only show you the apps you care about. The ones you know of and are should be able to close. The tasks displayed are ones that stay backgrounded when you press home and / or tasks that were backgrounded with the backgrounder app.

Note: some tasks, the iPhone will start right back up if you kill such as phone or mail.

In addition, I released SBSettings v1.0.7 today which adds a total available memory line on the text display. This replaces the iphone name which was not so useful.

Note that deleting safari task frees up 4 mb of RAM in the screenshots below:


BigBoss Authors: Mark Bruce & Kory Lee

Tags: , , , ,

111 Responses to “SBSettings Processes Widget”

  1. brandon Says:

    works great!! thanks BB!!

  2. Skol Says:

    Very nice, thanks :)

  3. bobbydigital Says:

    this is a great addition, you continue to amaze me, i would just like to say thank you. also im patiently waiting for safari dl toggle, do you see this coming any time soon?

  4. billchase2 Says:

    exactly what i’ve been wanting! thanks so much!

  5. bobbydigital Says:

    one more thing, when i reboot bluetooth shows red although its on, i refresh and it turns green, is it a way to fix so a refresh isnt needed. this is not something thats just happen with update, its been like this im just now saying something, because i was waiting for an update to see if would work properly but im guessing it may need a toggle update. idk just guessing

  6. Jared Says:

    Brilliant!

    I notice that the free memory reported is about twice that from another memory app that was released a couple of days ago on the app store (and the name escapes me since I deleted it after installing the new sbs version).

    Would it be possible to include in the process list the amount of ram and CPU hit of each app?

    Thanks! (sbsettings is the primary reason I chose to jailbreak!)

  7. Shaggy Says:

    Nice!!!

    Good deal Boss!

  8. Max Says:

    Excellent addition! Thanks BigBoss!

    Could you give us some basic numbers such as how much RAM does the phone have total so we know how much available is left ie: is 18mb a lot or almost running out? How much memory do apps normally use? 1-2MB, 5-7MB etc?

  9. Shawin Says:

    Hey BigBoss, I have one request. Is it possible to disable SBSettings’ from launching when playing a video? Or even better, make SBSettings only appear with a two-finger swipe? I hate to accidentally launch it. And, when a video is playing in landscape, sbsettings appear sideways and the close button almost never works. :(

  10. Jared Says:

    A follow-up:

    The app i had been using to check my RAM was “Free Memory”. It was reporting up to about 22 MB free max. I’m seeing initially 68MB then 35MB being reported by SBsettings.

    (I’m more inclined to believe SBS as it’s better written, but was curious about the difference and variation.)

    Cheers

  11. ??? Says:

    Thanks BB. Are you planning to release a widget that is more detailed (think top)? Because I think that if you made that separately that would be great.

  12. Shahir Jinnah Says:

    i dont see upgrade in cydia :(

  13. Innovative1 Says:

    This is great! Any progress on a VPN toggle?

  14. curasao Says:

    Thank you so much!!! I love you!!!

  15. Slava Says:

    Регистрация

  16. Slava Says:

    MxTube

  17. jcde7ago Says:

    Does having the Process Widget itself installed use up RAM? Cause i did notice I had less free RAM with the process widget installed than with it uninstalled. Just wondering if it’s just me….but other than that, keep up the great work!

  18. BigBoss Says:

    I consider both free and inactive pages to be free memory since both can be used by a new app trying to load. Most apps would probably only count “free”. That is probably the difference. Inactive pages are pages that are no longer in use but are still held by the OS for whatever reason.

  19. BigBoss Says:

    No, it would be really insignificant.

  20. BigBoss Says:

    I’m not sure yet. I may try to obtain some more information per app and also display the amount of memory springboard is using. But the source code to top sure is ugly. Anyways, I don’t see the value in displaying every app / process especially when you cant do anything about most of them.

  21. BigBoss Says:

    The process widget loads its memory when it shows and frees when it closes so it should not be using any memory when not open.

  22. johnny0 Says:

    nicely done, sir!

    Is there any way you can indicate which apps are backgrounded? If so maybe you could italicize the name.

    Could you add some sort of simple memory analysis/warning or percentage – basically context for the “memory available” number Something like “Warning! Only 10% of RAM Free!”

    Thanks again.

  23. samela Says:

    Awesome BB!

    Q: so is it not possible to put cydia in the background using backgrounder? I tried and it still needs to load. The process widget confirms its not running :(

  24. Anonymous Says:

    I agree. I think that maybe you should only display the ones that can be killed.

  25. Kalabaza Says:

    I notice that if I have Cydia open and try to closed it will the sbsettings widget it won’t close. I try with safari and it does closes.

    And by the way if I have Cydia open, it uses around 20 to 30 MB of memory, that is a lot. Safari only uses 4 MB.

    Is this a normal behavior? (the imposibility to close Cydia and that it uses so much memory)

  26. chromeluv Says:

    Yeah, CYDIA uses alot of memory..

  27. Roberto Says:

    i think a “full top” plugin (with no ability to kill things) would be nice to detect if theres a crashing process eating your battery (has happened to me, and using top for that is not that fast : P )

  28. Jared Says:

    BigBoss,

    I just noticed a subtle vulnerability with SBSettings.

    If the phone goes to sleep while SBSettings is running, and the passcode lockscreen keypad appears, it is possible to select More in SBS, exit with the home button, and defeat the passcode lockscreen entirely — exiting SBS takes you to the Spring/Winter board.

    If the passcode lockscreen is not present or enabled, SBS briefly appears but exits so quickly that it’s practically impossible for someone to recognize and use this vulnerability.

    Of course, the simple solution is to never be distracted and forget to exit SBSettings. ;)

    Would it be possible to tweek SBS’s behavior with a passcode to match it’s behavior without a passcode?

    Cheers

  29. Anonymous Says:

    I noticed this and made a comment under the name “Security Bug” but got no responses.

  30. BigBoss Says:

    Which is what it does now.

  31. BigBoss Says:

    Cydia runs as root so cant be closed by springboard (running as mobile). Cydia also does some things to prevent being closed. Imagine it 1/2 installing something and being closed leaving the system in a bad state.

  32. BigBoss Says:

    What process caused this and how did you debug it?

  33. BigBoss Says:

    I don’t plan to work on this and instead plan to use my time for more important things. You can easily prevent it by not letting the phone sleep while the sbsettings window is open. Therefore it’s totally in your own control to prevent this if you care to.

  34. THEdAY Says:

    Great update!

    What are average “Available Memory” values on an iPhone running stock firmware with no apps running?

    Just need some type of relative value to compare to.

    Thanks!

  35. bruciato Says:

    hello :)

    sorry i have an unrelated question:
    its probably a really silly question but i cant figure it out
    how do i have a different wallpaper for my springboard to my lockscreen?

    do i have to download an app?

    anyone?

  36. maz Says:

    I don´t see any upgrade for to open SBSettings at lockscreen! Is that something not gonna happen in the future either?

  37. epqr Says:

    Nice update! This os really usefull. However i am having a small issue with it. I can’t seem to be able to kill mail or safari while they are running in the baclground.

  38. vito05 Says:

    Greate job BB !!! Thx .U slowly do dewice being the best in its section.
    What about to make some mayby widget to switch between running
    apps from level SBsettings ??!!
    And of course in the end : copy and paste :-)
    Cheers

  39. Max Says:

    ?

  40. Roberto Says:

    mm, dont remember now, but they were 2 proceses as far as i remember, and one was the crashreporter (i think) that kept cicling (first one, then the other)

    i saw them in top.

    but using top means:
    1) open terminal
    2) type TOP + enter
    3) read
    4) “control + c” gesture
    5) manually type killall Terminal (since the shortcut stops working after usint top, the one that apears in the many options that apear when you push the screen).

    the problem i described never happened again, it apeared twice before 2.2, once was fixed by a reboot, then next only with a restore if i remember correctly.

    pd: nevertheless, im a maniac and would love to see whats running, even if i cant kill it, and without all those steps i mentioned above :P

  41. spyboy Says:

    Not displayin’ procesess that cant be killed is a good choice; anyways a while back i was messing around with this game (guitar tour i think its name was)and it just kept crashin (it just uses every bit of memory availiable), so i started analizin procesess with “top” and was able to terminate some of them (Tqserver? i think, mediaserver) thus makin the game playable without a crash. I didnt see any adverse effects to the OS, so maybe those werent that important. Idk if i’m askin for too much, but including a “terminate at your own risk” Process list would make this widget even more interesting.

  42. HandyRandy Says:

    i suppose this could be useful in a small handful of situations, but i noticed when I background cydia, then install and app within cydia, it doesn’t install right until I go back and un-background it then exit. This might only apply to apps that require respring, but it’s enough reason for me to never background cydia.

  43. qwijibo Says:

    show the process that can’t be killed in grey

  44. drow Says:

    Hey Bigboss,

    For some reason I don’t see the process icon to bring up the processes to kill. I do see the available memory at the bottom of sbs settings though. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling sbs settings and I still don’t get the icon for processes. Any ideas??

  45. Sergio Says:

    I too, cant see any new icon…

  46. Sergio Says:

    found it… just kill the brightness switch :)

  47. jose Says:

    For some reason I don’t see the process icon to bring up the processes to kill. I do see the available memory at the bottom of sbs settings though. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling sbs settings and I still don’t get the icon for processes. Any ideas??
    i seam to be running into the same problem, is there a difference if i have a 2 gen phone?

  48. Anonymous Says:

    Cydia isn’t showing an update for 1.0.7, I’m on 1.0.6 and don’t have the processes icon.

  49. awayze Says:

    Why do people keep asking for a safari dl toggle, I don’t understand???

  50. Mike Says:

    Hello.

    Thanks for this new widget, very useful. I support those who suggested a way of indicating how much memory apps use, if possible.

    On a related note, I wanted to ask about a potential bug I found. If I turn off wifi through the normal setting app, often sbsettings does not reflect that changed state. If I then hit refresh, it crashes and I have to force reboot. It seems that other refreshes of sbsettings has often the same effect. Any hints?

    A further point, not really related to the process killer widget, is a feature request for the wifi toggle. It would be very very useful if it could bring up the little HUD that let’s you select Which network to use, and not just switch wifi off and on. Is that at all possible, Bigboss?

    Thanks. M

  51. bobbydigital Says:

    because when u watch a video from a website, u can only watch one the second vid and there after will not display video just sound. so to watch more then one u have to turn off.

  52. jose Says:

    dude yo have to open cydia,then go to sections at the bottom open App Addons, scrole down till you find processes and install, good luck.

  53. stickybeak Says:

    Thank you so much BB for this SBS add-ons!

    Does Processes exempts Cydia from getting interrupted or killed while loading? I tried this just a while ago, Cydia kept loading even after deleting the application on the Processes window.

  54. bigcat25 Says:

    you know..!!? an Auto Correct toggle/widget would be nice on this app.

  55. bruciato Says:

    hello :)

    i’m really sorry that the following question is really “low tech” and simple
    but i cant figure it out
    how do i get a different wallpaper for my springboard to my lockscreen?

    do i have to download an app?

    anyone?

  56. BigBoss Says:

    I am not totally sure. On 2.2, it seems around 30mb free is average. Without winterboard themes it may be a bit more. It also seems that the device can get as low as 15mb free without any real side effects. I noticed that other backgrounded apps get closed as more memory is needed. Safari, for example, can get closed out by SpringBoard (or whatever OS process manages memory) if a game needs more memory. It’s unclear if this mechanism works perfectly or if its best to manage it on your own.

  57. BigBoss Says:

    Pretty convincing. I guess I’ll add some ability for this in the future.

  58. BigBoss Says:

    If you dont like brightness just turn it off in the more app.

  59. BigBoss Says:

    This is an addon widget. You have to install it. It’s called processes.

  60. ouh Says:

    1. open your photoalbum
    2. open a photo
    3. press the button with arrow jumping out of box (down left)
    4. press “Use as Wallpaper”
    5. Move and Scale
    6. press “Set Wallpaper”
    - Done

    you should really take a look at the iphone videos on the apple.com site.. they explain these “low tech” question very good.

  61. bruciato Says:

    thanks for the effort but my question is slightly different, i would like to have 2 different wallpapers, one for the lock screen and one for the springboard is there a way to do that?

  62. Jared Says:

    BigBoss,

    Can you explain about the HHD partitions sometime? (I realize this is tangential to the process discussion, but germane to SBSettings.)

    I did a search for BossTools, and the info there was helpful, but left me with more questions.

    I’d like to understand the difference between / and /var, what would be considered a low number for /, if rejailbreaking & repartioning with pwnage would be preferable to moving apps from one partition to the other (or not), as well as any performance or stability implications associated with having a / partition that’s nearly full.

    Perhaps this would be better as a new blog topic. I’d be interested in this subject since your explanations of the tech bits of the iPhone are quite clear. Cheers.

  63. Max Says:

    Thank you!

  64. Ofer LaOr Says:

    Works great!

    Few remarks:
    1. When the phone gets locked (manually or automatically), if SBS is in front, it will still be there, while it really needs to unload.

    2. When SBS goes down with processes active, when it comes back, the process list is still there, but not refreshed…

    3. I wish there was a way to integrate backgrounder into this. If we could mark the current task as a background task through this type of interface it would be fantastic..

  65. andy Says:

    Thanks for making the ipod that much better!!!

    How hard would it be to have a toggle for auto lock.
    If toggled it would never auto lock else use default lock time.

  66. warren Says:

    After installing sbsettings my battery seems to drain much faster. In settings the usage and standby times are now always the same when before the usage was always much lower than the standby. Any suggestions?

  67. BigBoss Says:

    I dont think this is related to sbsettings unless you are leaving sbsettings screen open all the time when the device is in your pocket or such.

  68. awayze Says:

    I can’t find it in Cydia anywhere and SBsettings is
    still on v1.0.6 and not v1.0.7 like in the screenshot. Cydia isn’t showing an update for SBsettings either.

    Any help? Thanks

  69. Roberto Says:

    You should use top to check if there isnt any abnormal process or something like i described that was happening to me in my previous post.

  70. awayze Says:

    I can’t find it and I’m on v1.0.6 and i don’t think Cydia is updating properly as last time it had any changes was 3 days ago :-S

    Yeh, there’s no update for v1.0.7 for me :-(

  71. warren Says:

    Reboot seemed to fix it. Thanks BB for a great app

  72. Zman Says:

    I’ve noticed after installing sbsettings that if my phone is totally off and in the dock charging and i turn it on it goes straight into safe mode. Anyone else have this problem. I tried uninstalling sbsettings and it does remedy the problem. Anyone else have this happen.

  73. Zouka Says:

    Hello Big Boss

    Great App, but I have noticed something and as I see, at least one more person is experiencing the same thing. every now and then, I check on the SBSettings and I see that the SSH toggle is on, even though I always keep it off and have it configured on my 3G to be off even when restarting the phone. I just updated SBSettings so maybe the glitch will be addressed now, but just in case, this is what I am seeing and maybe some other people might check it as well.

  74. THEdAY Says:

    SBSetting’s feature is to have SSH “on” after reboot.

    If you want SSH “off” then you will have to turn it back “off” after every reboot.

    Reason being, it is a safety precaution to leave it “on” just incase something ever went wrong you would have the ability to SSH into phone.

  75. Ofer LaOr Says:

    THEday,

    Is there any way to control this or prevent this?

    It’s a bit dangerous to have SSH on when walking around in the street or using a public WIFI…

  76. Push Says:

    Thanks for another great release. I’d like to again inquire about a toggle for push e-mail. Can any capable programmers create one? Can it even be done? I know there are some restrictions as to what can be made into a toggle but that sort of stuff is way beyond me. Thanks again.

  77. Zouka Says:

    Thanks, although it is a bit dangerous to keep your iPhone “open” all the time, besides the terrible battery drainage. My phone doesn’t last more than half a day if I leave the SSH feature on. But thanks for the info

  78. 2-7offsuit Says:

    Great app. Small quibble/recommendation for the next version. To kill an app how about saying “Quit” or “Kill” the word “Delete” is a little misleading. At first glance I thought it was going to uninstall the program.

    Anyway, obviously not a big deal. Keep up the great work!

  79. William Says:

    Nice and useful… Thanks…

  80. Anonymous Says:

    Regarding SBSettings, can it be fixed that OpenSSH does NOT default to ON every reboot? Thanks <3

  81. bruciato Says:

    hello :)

    i’m really sorry that the following question is really “low tech” and simple
    but i cant figure it out
    how do i get a different wallpaper for my springboard to my lockscreen?
    (i wouls like the lockscreen wallpaper to be different to the springboard wallpaper using the winterboard function”user wallpaper”)

    do i have to download an ap

  82. effi Says:

    hey Guys, is there somehow the possibility to integrate quickgold to SBSettings.. maybe a Toggle to turn Quickgold off or something to save a little bit memory…
    I ask because always when i use Snapture, i get Memory problems

  83. i_Hot Says:

    Just install locksreen themes in Cydia’s theme section; then you choose it in winterboard. Lockscreen wallpaper and user wallpaper (springboard theme) is two different things. You can do lot of mod wallpaper if you know how to SSH the iPhone

  84. Mark Says:

    Thanks for this great app. Do you know how much SBSettings uses? And how much mb uses BossPreffs?

    Thanks again, Mark

  85. Placinta Says:

    Thank you very much for this fine app.

    I’d like to give an idea for a toggle, and because I wasn’t sure were to post it, I’ll write here.

    A Lock Screen toggle would be very convenient, so you don’t have to use the Lock Button and break it. I heard there was something similiar for the 1.x firmware.

    I would try and code it myself, but I don’t have any Obj-C experience, and installing the toolkit is proving quite difficult.

    Thanks very much.

  86. Tatouts Says:

    Hi, I Like it very much,

    But since I installed it, each time i put my device ON the springboard crash…

    Any ideas…

    Many thanks

  87. Dorian Grey Says:

    The “SSH on Reboot always Off”-Toggle would make this app just PERFECT!

  88. E Says:

    Hi. Thanks for this. I had removed the SSH widget from showing up in the toggles, and now cannot get it to reappear. I have tried rebooting the phone. Any other ideas how I may be able to get the SSH toggle to re-appear?
    Thanks!

  89. Danny Says:

    My iphone keeps showing the “slide to power off” Screen and also automatically tirnes the ringer up and down for no reason. This happened after I went to the 2.2 update from 2.1 (hacked) ? Any ideas?

  90. Steve Jobs Says:

    iphone is split into 2 partitions. your main partition being 500 megs and your media partition being the left over (7.5 gigs or 15.5 gigs). you have the ability using pwnage tool for mac to resize your system partition to something larger 1 gig is popular.

    I believe that it is common for the jailbreak tools to automatically move your fonts and ringtones to your media partition and sym link, but in reality, all your apps installed from apple will be on your media partition, and all your apps and games installed by cydia will be in your stash folder. all your themes as well, and these are all in the media 15 gig partition.

    the only reason you need a larger system partition is if your installing alot of libraries and developer tools that have to reside there. 500 megs is fine for most people and I don’t see needing to go over 1 gig.

    / is root. /var is in /private/. so the full path of var is /private/var/

  91. E Says:

    I know it has only been a few days, but does anyone else know about this bug? Is there a forum anywhere to discuss it?
    Thank You
    E

  92. Triscopic Says:

    +1. I love sbsettings, but VPN would be great as it’s the toggle I use most often. Keep up the excellent deb work guys!

  93. o0ravers0o Says:

    I encounterd the same problem here please help

  94. o0ravers0o Says:

    Never Mind I got it back

  95. BDH Says:

    You just use winterboard and select user lock background – it applies your wallpaper to your lock screen

  96. Aaron Says:

    Great app! Absolutely killer!

    My feedback: instead of the red x (or in addition to it, whatever), maybe we can slide the drawer back up to put it away, as it were?

  97. Tim Says:

    I love the app!! There’s just one bug I wanted to bring to your attention. I like the fact that Mail and Phone stay active but when I uninstall the program, the phone acts like it is still there. With the app uninstalled, Mail, Safari, Phone and iPod will still keep running in the background even though the app is not there.

    Is there a way to keep this from happening? When I close these apps, I would like them closed and not still running. Could there be something wrong with the uninstall script?

  98. BAM Says:

    If you dont have sbsettings installed and you install this app, it will auto-install sbsettings, but it will crash cydia without restarting springboard. You have to them manually reboot to get sbsettings to start up.

  99. iDom Says:

    Shawin,

    When SBS accidentally appears, just hit the home button and it will slide back away, even if you’re running a program like YouTube in landscape mode.

    This is also very useful feature when you want to open an app and check how much memory it eats up after loading. Hit the app, then quickly swipe status bar to launch SBS, then watch the available memory number drop in front of your eyes.

  100. iDom Says:

    I agree, but only for Mail. I don’t use Push and all email is set to Manual Fetch. Closing Mail via SBS Processes clears up 4Mb. Unfortunately, everytime you turn the phone off (or it goes to sleep), upon waking the Mail app is back again. Seems like a waste of 4Mb that could be used toward other backgrounded apps like biteSMS (or whatever non-stock SMS you use) which I’ve watched chew up 14Mb after backgrounded!!!

    PS. With biteSMS, Mail & Phone running I show 25Mb available memory. Open Maps and it drops to 18Mb. Open Safari and load a basic page and it drops from 25 to 17Mb.

  101. Rotty37 Says:

    3G firmware 2.21 . The past few days I’ve been having problems with crashes constanly throughout the day when phone is idle. I noticed that once I have uninstalled sbsettings it works great. I also eliminated any recent add ons and pretty much striped it down to just a few themes that’s always worked. Anyone having the same issue?

  102. Rotty37 Says:

    iPhone 3g 8gb Black firmware 2.21 Jailbreak with Quickpwn ver 2.2.5-2.SBSettings 1.0.7-5

    Problem solved! Seems like SBSettings ver 1.0.7-5 does not like when Passcode lock is enabled. Since then, I haven’t had any crashes with my iPhone with SBSettings installed. When idle, Passcode lock is enable, when I enter my 4 digit passcode, it use to crash before, during and after entering passcode and various times during the day. Even when idle it was crashing. Since disabling passcode, I haven’t had any issues. I hope there’s a fix for this. Wondering if anyone has similar issues.

  103. Mick from OZ Says:

    Hi there. My phone will crash without fail if I refresh when in safari. It will also crash sometimes if I do things like toggle ssh. Last night I ugraded from 2.2 to 2.2.1 hoping it would fix the issue and it hasn’t

    Any ideas?

  104. SnW689 Says:

    Ever since I upgraded to v1.1b my mail app icon on my itouch keeps having the circular loading icon on the bottom left hand corner of the mail app icon. It’s not a big issue or anything, it’s just annoying. Is there away to not show that the process is running? I kill the mail task and the icon does disappear, however as stated above, it pops right back –> “Note: some tasks, the iPhone will start right back up if you kill such as phone or mail”.

    Is this happening to anyone else? Or is my i touch starting to screw up?

  105. Drkrvn Says:

    Is there a possibility to integrate a feature that clicking on à Task-Icon starts the App.? Would be nice for switching to backgrounded apps.

  106. Johannes Says:

    Is it possible to theme the processes list? Thanks

  107. wAsT3D Says:

    Hey, im Kind of new to this stuff but im not sure on how to add that application to my ipod. If you could direct me to a tutorial that would be appreciated thanks.

  108. Mike Says:

    I am a SBsettings noob. I downloaded the THE REAL 360SB theme and i only can activate it for the drop down window. How do i activate it for my backround and apps like in the screen shot.

  109. Mike Says:

    Never mind just got the legit winterboard version its all good

  110. Hose Says:

    Its because you like men

  111. zajenremansher Says:

    hello ladies and genteman, please test it duds

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