There’s a fine balance to be struck between functionality and simplicity for modern smartphone lock screens. Add too many features to the lock screen, and it starts looking like the actual home screen. Taking away too many will make it too simple; an unnecessary step before getting to the home screen. Unlike with Android, iOS users don’t get to tweak said balance, for they are expected to be satisfied by Apple’s solution of the smartphone lock screen. That is, of course, unless they jailbreak their device, opening it up to a world of powerful apps and tweaks.

One such new jailbreak tweak for boosting lock screen functionality is PassDial. It allows you to set certain codes – other than the ‘passcode’ that unlocks your device – entering which calls a certain, predefined number directly from the lock screen. The tweak is brilliant when you think of it! It has a certain Samsung TouchWiz-like feel to it, which isn’t bad at all.

I know I have five contacts that I call regularly: my parents, my little brother, and two of my close buddies. With PassDial, I get to save at least 3-4 steps on a regular basis. No need to enter my passcode, launch Phone.app, go over to Favorites, and tap a contact.

Once installed, head over to Settings > PassDial. From here, you can create up to five ‘phone number and code’ pairs (you need to pay $1.99 for the Pro version to lift this limitation). Just remember, if you are using the simple 4-digit passcode, the code in your contact-code pair must also be four digits long.

PassDial was tested on an iPhone 4S jailbroken on iOS 7.0.4. It worked as advertised. I was able to quickly call a test contact right from the lock screen without any hitches. Personally though, I will not be using the tweak since I use CleverPin to altogether bypass the lockscreen when I am connected to my home/university WiFi, which means I don’t get prompted to enter the passcode.

PassDial is available for free on Cydia under the BigBoss repo.