Safari Download Manager

Safari Download Manager (SDM) is a jailbreak iPhone app developed by Dustin Howett and Cocoanuts available on the Cydia Store for $5. The Safari Download Manager mod is an extension to Safari, the web browser built in to iOS, and the application works with the iPad and iPod touch as well. SDM requires iOS 4.0 and iFile. The iFile mod, which is available at Cydia, typically costs $4, but if you purchase it with SDM, you get a $2 discount, so you get the entire package for about $7, which is not a bad deal.

The goal of the SDM iPhone app developed by Dustin Howett is to make downloading easier across the board, and it does that, on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, by enhancing the core downloading capabilities of Safari. What makes this app great is the seamlessness at which it does this. You don’t feel like you’re using an extension but rather just an enhanced version of the basic Safari web browser.

The greatest benefit to this seamlessness comes in the form of usability. There’s no setup, and for the most part, you don’t have to use SDM; the added functionality is simply there. For instance, one of the biggest changes you’ll notice when using this jailbreak app is the ability to download multiple files simultaneously. Simply start downloading that second application, and then SDM handles the rest automatically.

Safari Download Manager also comes with a wide range of file support right out of the box. This is a hack that casual users can simply install and use without any fuss at all. For the power user, SDM has a control panel, which lets you configure SDM to support files types that it doesn’t support natively. Configuring file types is very simple, but if you have trouble, there are tutorials for almost every file type imaginable available online.

The other important benefit you get from SDM is freedom. Default Safari web browser blocks various downloads and file types for a host of reasons. Of course, we don’t support software piracy in any way, but as a power user, we want the ability to decide what’s safe and what’s not. We don’t need Safari deciding for us, and that freedom and flexibility is why we wouldn’t iPhone without SDM.

Safari Download Manager is not a perfect, however. After all, it’s a hack, and in order to do what it does, it requires some creative yet imperfect solutions. What that means for the end-user, at times, is some odd behavior. For example, the RapidShare website, which is one the most popular file hosts, displays some quirks with SDM, such as a phantom download prompt at each new page. These quirks aren’t deal-breakers, but they’re frustrating enough for us to reduce our rating of SDM by half a point.