How to stop your iPhone from vibrating on tables

By , Mar 8, 2013

MyVibe 02

Don’t you just hate it when you place your iPhone on a table, and notifications start going off? You get that annoying buzzing sound, which is the result of the vibration motor pulsating on the hard table surface. Wouldn’t it be awesome if your iPhone knew when it was laying on a flat surface, thus disabling the vibration? Well, that’s the premise behind MyVibe.

MyVibe is a relatively new jailbreak tweak that’s available for $1.99 on Cydia’s BigBoss repo. Once installed there are quite a few options that can be configured using the tweak’s preference panel. Take a look inside for a video walkthrough showcasing how to use MyVibe, and why it may be beneficial for you.

You won’t notice a bunch of settings contained within MyVibe’s preferences, but it’s a pretty complex tweak when you think about it and really start to break it down. Let’s examine each of MyVibe’s settings.

For starters, there’s the basic functionality from which the tweak’s name is derived, the Table Vibrate feature. Enabling Table Vibrate will disable vibration when your iPhone is placed on a table. It doesn’t matter if the phone is placed facing down, or facing upwards; all vibrations will be silenced once MyVibe recognizes the state of your iPhone, and the vibration suppression kicks in.

To go along with this feature, there is a handy sensitivity option that relegates how much leeway is given to the iPhone’s accelerometer. There are five sensitivity levels included: very low, low, medium, high, and very high. Very high sensitivity means that your iPhone will have to be dead-still, and placed on a flat surface in order for MyVibe to kick in. As you lower the sensitivity, MyVibe kicks in sooner, with less restrictions on slight movements. If you use the lower sensitivity levels, then MyVibe will actually start working by simply holding the iPhone perpendicular to your body in a casual manner.


From my usage with the tweak, I recommend either high or very high sensitivity. You don’t really want MyVibe activating while holding your phone, as that kind of defeats the purpose of it.

Once MyVibe kicks in and vibration suppression is enabled, you’ll notice a little vibration icon in your iPhone’s status bar. This is a handy visual indicator that MyVibe is actually working, but not all that necessary in the grand scheme of things. Fortunately, there’s an option to disable the status bar icon within the tweak’s settings.

Last but not least, comes MyVibe’s Upside Down Silencer. Enabling this mode will turn on the iPhone’s built in Do Not Disturb functionality when your iPhone is placed upside down on a table. Keep in mind that Do Not Disturb only enables when your iPhone is locked. Even if you place your iPhone upside down on a table, you’ll still continue to receive notifications until you lock your device, or when auto lock kicks in.

MyVibe is a well working jailbreak tweak. It’s especially handy if you’re someone who keeps both vibration and audible tones enabled. For a $1.99 on Cydia’s BigBoss repo, I think it’s a reasonable asking price for a tweak that works pretty much exactly as advertised. What say you?

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  • http://www.facebook.com/jamie.tilden.9 Jamie Tilden

    This tweak is actually amazing. Been using it for about a week now. I’m a student and having my phone resting on a table in a quiet library…well, you get the point. The only thing I wish is, because I use it so much, that there would be some quick access toggle to turn it on and off.


      maybe Ryan Petrich will take care of it as usual

  • Marcos Sánchez Ramis

    just tested it, it’s pretty awesome!

  • Damian W

    One of the missing options is for a mute switch. When you toggle a mute switch and put iPhone on the table, the phone goes in a complete silent mode with no vibs. The developer said he is gonna add some functions related to mute switch. Otherwise, it is awesome tweak.

    • http://twitter.com/Tymanbrew Ty brewer

      If you got to settings-sounds you just turn off vibrate on mute !

      • Damian W

        you did not get my point. I dont want to turn it off.

        When I toggle a mute switch, that means i want to put my phone on vibrations only. But, with this tweak my phone will go to complete silence, which is unwanted.

        To solve it, we either need a toggle button, which could be quickly accessed anywhere or the developer could actually work on some solution inside the tweak. Unfortunately, seems like the developer takes his sweet time to do this simple change. It has been a while since the first release.

  • Ilter Cengiz

    So, what about the battery life? Listening the accelerometer all the time will drain battery pretty fast, I think.

    • Damian W

      The battery seems to be as usual. Does not really drain faster.

    • http://www.facebook.com/jamie.tilden.9 Jamie Tilden

      I’ve been using it for a while now and my battery life is stable

      • felixtaf

        Two of the tweaks you mentioned in that iPad post were reviewed in iDB… :-) thank u…

  • http://twitter.com/jjk454ss jjk454ss

    How well does it work when the phone is in your pocket and your sitting down, its perpendicular, but on its side not back. Does it still vibrate reliable when your sitting down and its in your pocket?

    • Damian W

      It is hard to say, the tweak needs to be tested for a long time to see if it has some serious flaws. For now, I could see Myvibe to get enabled while I was holding it in my hand, the phone was not flat and I was moving a little bit. If you keep your phone very flat in your pocket then MyVibe will be enabled. Gyroscope reads the exact angle of the phone’s position. The surface does not matter.

  • http://www.facebook.com/angelofchit May T. Win

    Is there any way to just silent the iphone cometely? Even though the phone is on vibrate or silent, the alarm still goes off. I have alarm for couple times of the day for the medication… But it goes off the hook in the class or in movie n really feel embarrase.

    • mhchehade

      Settings, sounds turn off both of vibrate on ring and vibrate on silent

    • http://www.facebook.com/jamie.tilden.9 Jamie Tilden

      Why don’t you just use the Reminders app instead?

  • http://www.facebook.com/adamfogel333 Adam Fogel

    What app do you use to record the screen?

  • yuri

    Need a toogle for it! FAST

  • Laszlo

    there is a serious bug! Once the Do Not Disturbe is activated by the tweak, my phone become totally unobtainable for calls. I have to uninstall the tweak to reach my phone again.

  • Z3r0ViP

    What are you using to record the screen, Jeff? Is it Display Recorder?

  • Bob

    The upside down to silence is awesome, been using it for the last few days ! :)