SBSettings Vs. BossPrefs

Posted in Jailbroken Apps on 12. May, 2009

So there’s still a lotta’ searchin’ goin’ on on the site about SBSettings, and a popular one is “SBSettings vs. BossPrefs” and also “SBSettings performance”. So let’s get into that.

SBSettings vs. BossPrefs. Which is better and which should you use? First, know that SBSettings is sorta’ like an upgrade of BossPrefs. Think of SB as Windows Vista and Boss as Windows XP. SB and Vista can both do more than Boss and XP, but runs down your system to a point where it’s really not worth it. Windows XP (Boss Prefs) technically does less, but people don’t use Windows Vista (SBSettings) because of how horrible it runs. That’s kinda’ a good way of comparing the two.

Boss Prefs is just an app you quickly open and turn things on and off. What the developers decided to do was make a “better” version that, instead of you having to open an app, they would make a program run in the background where you could swipe your finger across the screen and bring up your little on-off buttons.

The reason the developers think SBSettings is far better than Boss Prefs is the fact it runs in the background, but that’s actually the reason that makes it bad… it runs in the background.

The iPhone OS can only handle so many things running in the background and when you have things running in the background, it of course slows things down some. I talked about it in detail before, and SBSettings does slow your sytem down.

SBSettings and Boss Prefs both have the same things, they can hide icons and a bunch of other stuff. But there’s one thing SBSettings can do that Boss Prefs can’t; brightness. SB can give you quick access to your brightness. Boss Prefs can’t.

With Boss Prefs, you can double tap your home button and bring it up, but it closes out the app you were working on. SBSettings, you can bring it up over your app, turn something on or off or change brightness and go right back into your app. But, SBSettings eats into your performance in order to do this. You’ll actually use SBSettings less than 1% the time your on your iPhone, yet it runs in the background 100% of the time your using your iPhone. See what I’m sayin’?

When comparing the two, I do love SBSettings, but I don’t recommend it to anybody… any-body… over Boss Prefs. We need to find ways to keep our jailbroken iPhones as quick as regular iPhones, not find ways to slow them down.

Peace, J

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  • Actually SBSettings does not run in the background (which I believe is the whole premise of this article). Instead, it hooks springboard functions. When certain events inside springboard occur, springboard (which is a single process already running without sbsettings installed) causes the sbsettings window to open. When you close the window, it goes back to being idle again. It uses about 1mb of memory to exist but does not run in the background, does not slow the device down, and does not cause performance issues. It would be very nice if some research could be done before posting these sorts of articles :(
  • johnbbaird
    I'm not an iPhone coder, but I will repeat what I said in that yes, it does run in the background. I won't attempt to explain how it does its thing. But it does run in the background. The fact that your able to activate SBSettings from anywhere in your iPhone (by swiping the top of the screen) clearly proves that.

    The performance issue is not when activating SBSettings, it's when it's not being used. Why does SBSettings slow down other functions of an iPhone when you don't have SBSettings open? Because is does, in fact... run in the background. If it didn't, you wouldn't be able to bring it up at any time. This is a fanboy mentality about SBSettings that I've discussed before and not everyone's buying it.

    http://www.theneocell.com/say-yes-to-bossprefs-no-to-sbsettings.htm

    I've done by own research that this does slow down an iPhone by simply using it with SBSettings installed and using it without SBSettings installed. A simple Google search shows that.

    It's unfortunate because I have to turn wifi and bluetooth on and off the hard way compared to the easy way of SBSettings, but it's not worth the performance hit, even with the Neocell 3GS, as I mentioned here...

    http://www.theneocell.com/necell-3gs-why-i-still-wont-use-sbsettings.htm

    Peace, JbB
  • Nonya
    Great response! I totally agree with you J. I can tell you did your research :)
  • johnbbaird
    Hey, thanks, appreciate it.

    Peace, JbB
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