Why Cydia Sucks And How It Could Be Improved
My friend Patrick over at JAiB finally said out loud what I’ve been thinking for quite some time now. In an article titled “why does using Cydia have to suck so much”, Patrick explains his frustration about how slow Cydia can be:
Cydia is slow to load and refresh its data, so you have a wait on your hands straight away when you launch it.
When it finishes loading I generally go straight to the Changes tab, to see what’s new. Today the Things for LockInfo plugin immediately caught my eye and I knew I wanted to take a look at it.
The plugin’s main screen said to scroll down for screenshots. There’s another very noticeable wait period while the page loads ads before I’m able to scroll down and see the Screenshots bar.
Once I tap the screenshots bar I get … nothing useful to me at all. Instead I just get a page with a banner for the plugin’s source – modmyi – and another general ad, and no screenshots anywhere to be found (after again waiting a fair while for that page to load). I tried refreshing the page a couple times – but no screenshots showed up.
So I gave up and ended up grabbing the plugin without seeing screencaps. Not the end of the world, but frustrating and just dumb really.
This has happened to me so many times that I can’t even count them. I got frustrated on so many occasions that I simply closed Cydia, probably missing out on some great jailbreak apps or themes.
I sometimes feel like Cydia is like a great movie that keeps being interrupted by commercials: I can take the ads for a while, but at some point I just switch to another channel.
Saurik, the creator of Cydia is is no way responsible for all these ads. He just provides a platform for the various repos and each of them display their data as they want.
How Can We Make Cydia Better?
I believe there are a couple simple things Saurik can do to improve the user experience on Cydia.
Rewrite the Way Cydia Updates
I don’t know about you but waiting 20 seconds for Cydia to “load data”, then wait another 20 seconds while “downloading release”, then another 20 seconds while “downloading packages”, and finally wait another 20 seconds while “reloading data” is just plain painful.
I’m no programmer but I’m pretty sure there are some ways to improve the loading speed.
Set Some Standards
Again, I have no idea what’s going on behind Cydia but I can’t imagine it would be too hard for Saurik to create a format that all repos would have to follow in order to show in Cydia.
For example, a proper format would include the following information in this specific order and across all repos: app name, description, screenshots, source information, more details. Just like the App Store app, I’d like to be able to get all the information about the app on one page only.
Of course it’s easier for me to be a critic than actually do something about it. After all, who am I to complain about Cydia?
Well, I am an iPhone owner with a great respect for Cydia and the amazing work Saurik has accomplished. I think he is out there with the Dev Team as one of the pillars of the jailbreak community.
This being said, having this blog is a great opportunity for me to send a message and hopefully being heard.
I know Patrick and I are not the only one out there feeling a bit frustrated with Cydia and I am confident that Saurik will know how to take this into account and maybe work on implementing some standards in a future version of Cydia.
What about you? How do you feel about Cydia?
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I just install SBSettings AdBlock and NoCyfresh toggles & everything works better for Cydia with less ads
I feel the exact same way. Cydia needs to be standardized and kept simple. I don’t mind the ads so long as they aren’t always in the way and unavoidable.
Cydia is standerdized, its built on top of dpkg whose package format is used through linux systems, its a common format and well implemented by cydia. Cydia is merely a GUI for dpkg. The real heft comes from Cydia having to manage so much information. The repo’s create the slow down from my experience, the lag on the page load for a description is simply the repo server responding slowly. As for reloading data, it has to parse through huge amounts of large data files to figure out the changes since the repos simply give a list of the current packages they host which is huge for all of the community sources. I agree it can and should be faster, but most of the limitations are simply due to the iPhone’s processor. Don’t want to sound like a troll but really do some research before posting articles like this. All of this information is readily available at saurik.com and he clearly explains why the dpkg choice was better than an unstandardized approach which installer/apptapp brought to the table and miserably failed at.
I agree to and I now a days am really scared to even visit cydia. I have great respect for saurik too but I definitely hope someone would something to improve the performance
i do not like cydia either, but (actually i do not know why) i don’t like the Rockapp…
I feel exactly the same way too. I have started using Rock and feel that it is slightly faster and lets you do things a little more concurrently (e.g., start searching before the updates are complete).
would love to see a logo or sth. similiar (;
this would improve the blog up to 400% (i do not know how to say this in good english :/ )
Cydia sucks and i agree with patrick,that’s why i only use Rock your Phone App
i like cydia simply because its allowed me to do so many things. i kind of feel like im betraying it by agreeing, but there are some little things that annoy me about it.
when searching, the key presses dont register straight away.
the load times when its first started (downloading packages etc)
how slow it can be when installing items
random crashes.
i dont often use cydia, unless i find out about something worth installing, so it doesnt really affect me, but when i do use it these little niggles make me dislike it- in a way.
I couldn’t agree more. Funny I was just thinking this morning to check some forums to see if others were havnig the same issues. And then I saw this blog. Nice.
I’m going to try Blackoteka suggestions and see if it helps.
I don’t mind the ads to much but I hate the lag. Just waiting for a description to populate kills me and there is no consistancy in the lag, meaning sometimes I go back to the list and reenter the theme/tool/utility and the description will popluate faster sometimes, sometimes, sometimes.
But I can’t stand Rock so I am left with just hitting cydia every couple days instead of twice a day as I used to
- I’d like more filters — for instance, I want to be able to hide all themes.
- I used icy for a while a bit ago — it seemed much much faster.
- It doesn’t make much sense that the reloading and downloading blocks all other aspects of the app. For instance, why does the “reloading data” session prevent browsing previously cached apps and prevent access to the manage screen?
- Agree on the need for standard 1st page info. Today, the first page contains info that seems largely irrelevant to most — “change package setting” is the 1st info listed?!
I think it should be re-written, or optimized for 3.0. That being said, it’s a little too late to suggest this, since 4.0 is around the corner. So umm, when 4.0 is re-written, Saurik, for the love of all things good in this world, re-write it, optimize it, anything that will speed it up and help with Cydia crashing so much.
how do you jailbreak after you download the new apple app, didnt know it would take my cydia away if i did never would have done it
Yea i agree cydia is fucking slow. Wat also pisses me off is in forums talkin bout steps to overcome its bugs, that and ppl explain shit that doesnt make sense to ppl wit no familiarity with ssh, scripts, etc.. Its too much shit that u shudnt hav to kno and then they laugh at ur ass for not havin a clue wtf they r talkin about and im not gona educate myself enough that i could be a fuckin developer. Very unuser friendly and saurek should make cydia usable for us folk that dont kno wtf. Again yes its fuckin slow, so slow i dnt let it finnish refuckinloading. So cydia for now is unused to me.
Cydia got an update and it is much faster now… check it out.