Ever wanted to know how to change the icons of a particularly ugly app? Well, if you’re Jailbroken and have SSH access you’re in luck! Resident theming genius, Ally (iMuggle on TiPb Forums and in the Twitter) has begun collecting her excellent tutorials into one easy to browse place. Here’s a sample:
you need to know how to do a few things in order to do this. After jailbreaking, you need to know how to SSH into your phone. If you’re not familiar with SSH, you need to get familiar with that first. *Note: Unless you feel completely comfortable doing this, I don’t recommend it. Point being, SSH’ing will give you access to ALL of your iPhone’s core files, so deleting/editing certain files could be disastrous if you don’t know what you’re doing. If you’re still reading, and you’re okay with all of this, continue on.
So, fair warning, that’s why we call these iPhone Ninja tips. They’re not for the casual user — hard core only.
If you’re interested and eager, however, give Ally’s tutorials a look and let her (and us!) know your results.
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard does indeed have some “refinements and enhancements” for the iPhone, namely a brand spanking new iPhone logo in System Preferences > Network when you’re tethered via the iPhone.
Yeah, okay, we know — AT&T users need do nothing but raise their fists and yell out a “KAAAAAAHHHHHHNNNN!” like scream at the gaping lack of functionality they’re still enduring. But at least you can take the smallest, most infinitesimal comforts in knowing that — if you’re a Mac — you’ll get a spiffy new icon to go with your no doubt exorbitantly overcharged tethering option.
If it ever becomes available.
[Via jpcaine]
Daynah from PHP-Princess.net just couldn’t abide the meager 11 pages and paltry 180 apps provided by iPhone 3.0, so she went about forcing Apple’s SpringBoard home screen manager to give her more. How did she do it?
Check the link above for the details, but the but gist is filling up more than the default 11 pages (additional apps will still be hidden), then moving built-in apps to the last spot, then moving in an additional icon to force a built-in app off the 11th screen, the downloading an app to fill in the empty spot, and… presto — 12th page.
Ninja level work-around to be sure, but if you can’t live with 180 visible apps, and decide to experiment, let us know your results!
Way back in the elder days of iPhone 3.0 Beta 5, there was some discussion on Twitter about how apps would have an incorrect icon, or would be missing an icon altogether. Since the iPhone 3.0 betas were private and not public, TiPb didn’t post about it as that’s just not how we play cricket. Private betas will have bugs, get those bugs reported, and hopefully have those bugs fixed by the time the software goes into general availability.
However, TUAW highlights that this particular bug is still biting iPhone 3.0, even in the release version. Now, as then, if you have an app that’s missing an icon or has the incorrect icon, you can try to reboot your iPhone, delete the app and download or sync it back on, or wait for Apple to fix it in a 3.0.x update.
Meanwhile, you can let us know the funniest app mishaps iPhone 3.0 is giving you in the comments below.
(Mine is the little AIM dude swiping my 1Passwords Pro!)
Confession: Jeremy can’t believe we’re posting this, but after a bunch of forum questions, email queries, and a mini Twitter ’splosion, we figured we’d put this up as a public service message to the Jailbreak community.
First: don’t panic.
Second: those strange little black icon badges that have suddenly popped up on your Phone, Email, iPod, and perhaps other apps? Yeah, that’s because you installed Backgrounder, and that’s how Backgrounder shows you which applications, built-in or user-enabled, are currently running background tasks (multitasking).
Third: enjoy.
Mac and iPhone icon designer Sebastiaan de With of Cocoia takes app designers to task for not making their icons better match the quality and look of Apple’s built-in apps. Says de With:
A lot of professional designers get it wrong as well, and I can understand; it’s truly very hard to make an icon that looks as great as one from Apple’s bunch and blends in with the rest. I don’t mean to be an icon snob; I like diversity in my icons, and especially creative freedom. It’s more than just annoying, however, when creative and diverse motifs look extremely alien to their environment.
Part of the blame is placed on Apple who’s iPhone HIG (human interface guidelines) provide a mere 378 words on icon design, with examples that are sub-par. But de With isn’t just complaining — he’s doing something about it. Enter: Composition:
Sean Patrick O‘Brien and I are working on the very first Mac application that will be released under the Cocoia ‘brand’: Composition. Composition allows you to take any image and get a pixel-perfect preview of iPhone’s default effects at regular home screen size and Settings/Spotlight small icon size. It also lets you look at your icon in a virtual home screen to achieve a native look (and yes, both iPhone and iPod touch home screens will be represented), and export it for further usage on websites and other materials.
Best of all, it’s going to be free.
Check out the pre-announcement for details.
