Call, Text, Mail Favourite Contacts From iOS 7 Notification Center: Favorite Contacts 7 Cydia Tweak

The recent trend being followed on Cydia is of convenience tweaks and I am glad that iOS 7 is getting more such tweaks than the theming ones. I certainly like trying these tweaks and see to what extent they make my experience better on iOS 7.

One of the recently added tweaks that I have really liked using is Favorite Contacts 7 for Notification Center. Do not go by the long name of this tweak because the features it offers are definitely worth considering. Favorite Contacts 7 adds your favorite contacts to iOS 7’s Notification Center and allows making calls, sending texts and even sending mails.

The tweak can display at most five contacts in the Notification Center but more can be added and they will automatically be organized in pages. The tweak does not come for free and costs $1.99. It is hosted on BigBoss repo.

How To Use Favorite Contacts 7 On iOS 7

Adding your favourite contacts is a bit tricky and that is why I have listed all the steps that will help you. First and foremost, purchase the tweak and install it on your device. Respring your device and then launch the Settings app. I am assuming you already have some contacts set as favorite under the Phone app. If you don’t, just open the Phone app and add some contacts to the Favorites tab.

Under Settings, scroll down until you see Favorite Contacts 7. Tap on it to access the tweak’s settings page. Here you have a couple of options like Show Names, Last Names, Labels, Page Indicators and Five Contacts. You can enable these options if you want.

At the bottom of the same page you have Ask for call, text and mail options which if enabled, will show the respective alert when you tap on a contact from the Notification Center. Just below the Alert Options you also have a “Standard Option” to select the default action (call, text or mail) you want to take on tapping a contact.

Once you have configured the app, navigate to the Notification Center tab from the Settings app and enable “Favorite Contacts 7” which will be present under Today View.

You have made all the efforts, now pull down the notification center and you would see your favourite contacts under a new ‘Phone’ section (refer to the image at the top).

How Well Does Favorite Contacts 7 Work

The tweak does work as advertised, however it does have some issues. Since the iOS 7 Notification Center is black, your favourite contacts will not be visible clearly IF they don’t have display pictures. So in order to see the contacts you must have display pictures added to them.

Another thing which I consider as an issue is with the Alert Options. If you have just one of these (Ask for Call, Ask for text or Ask for Mail) enabled, you will not be able to perform the Standard Action which could be call, text or mail. So make sure you enable all the three Alert Options in order to avoid inconvenience.