Eminent tweak developer Antique Dev has just released his own Cydia alternative called Arctic. Here’s all you need to know about it.

What is Arctic?

Arctic is a package installer for iOS 10.3.3 and older firmware versions. It is developed by Antique Dev, who is a very trusted member of the jailbreak community.

Other developers are also involved in this project and they have written a whopping 15,769 lines of code so far.

A pre-release beta is already out. If you are running a jailbreak on your device, you can give it a try. Here’s a preview of this amazing new installer.

If you are interested in trying it, you can download its Debian package and install it with Filza.

But before you decide to take it for a test drive, read the following points carefully.

Important –

• Remember, it’s still under development and reserved for testing purposes only.
• If you are a beginner, don’t install it on your device.
• You can experience crashes while opening the app. You can set proper permissions in this location – /Applications/arctic.app to fix this issue.

Download Arctic

• Debian package (official link)

Updates

• January 16 – A new improved pre-release version is out. It fixes crashing when launching the app.

What features does Arctic offer?

Here’s the complete list of features that are currently present in Arctic package manager.

• .deb installer –  You can install all Debian packages (tweaks, apps, and themes).
• Dynamic loading system – The app automatically adjusts its user interface to accommodate new packages.
• Automatic re-jailbreak – It will automatically put your device in jailbreak after each reboot.
• Asynchronous loading – Smooth image and media loading.
• Modern GUI – It uses a whole new modern GUI, unlike Cydia’s aging user interface.

Apart from its features, it does have a few limitations right now.

• Over-reliance on Substrate – It utilizes Saurik’s Substrate and doesn’t use its own tweak framework. Many recent installers and tools use different frameworks and don’t rely on Substrate.
• Broken installer – This is a temporary issue and will be fixed in the upcoming builds.

Future Development

iOS 11 support

This package installer isn’t ready for iOS 11-11.1.2 firmware versions yet.

The developers deliberately removed support for iOS 11. The reason behind this is that Coolstar uses a different tweaking system in Electra jailbreak toolkit for iOS 11.

Hopefully, the upcoming versions will fix compatibility issues with iOS 11-11.1.2.

More features

This installer is merely a UI in its present form. The packages available right now don’t work properly. I really hope this changes fast because I want to this alternative to succeed.

According to the developers, they have a lot of work ahead of them. Therefore, we can expect a full release sometime during the next few weeks.

What do you think about this new alternative to Cydia – will it succeed or fizzle out like iMods? Leave your comments below.

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