If you are currently jailbroken on iOS 5 you can now return to skinning and theming your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to your heart’s content — Saurik’s most recent update to Winterboard (0.9.3901) adds iOS 5 compatibility.

Although Winterboard is now compatible with iOS 5 it still isn’t safe to assume that all themes and skins are. As always, make sure you’re reading the descriptions carefully. In most cases themes just don’t apply properly if they haven’t been made compatible but it’s still good to check.

Anyone found any awesome themes that work with iOS 5 they want to recommend? Let us know!

Theming your iPhone is definitely one of the perks of being jailbroken. Sometimes a really nice theme comes along that completely changes not only the design but the way you use your iPhone. This may be the case with the OS X Ultimatum theme by Modmyi forum member SirTimothy1.

OS X Ultimatium is a complete overhaul of the iPhone UI and brings it back to the look and feel of the full scale version of Mac OS X. The theme boasts of the following features –

• Fully usable and accurate finder bars and menus
• Launchpad – tap it from the dock to view all your apps at once
• Stacks – just like in Mac OS X, quick access to all your favorite apps with one tap
• Scrollable dock – add more dock icons and simply scroll through them
• Draggable windows
• Mission Control – quick access to any widgets or view all open windows
• Functional dashboard – view any widgets by swiping right
• Lockscreen – customizable and functional

The developer is also planning on optimizing the theme even more to free up more RAM. Although this theme is still in beta, donating $3.50 to the developer via Paypal will grant you access to the beta. Hit the link below for even more screenshots, information, and videos of the theme in action! And as always, if you test it out, let us know what you think of it!

Modmyi

iNitsua is back and this time it’s with iNitsua Z Twilight 3volution, the sequel to K. Nitsua and Zausser’s original Twilight HD, this time with the fit, finish and UI crafting of Barsoverbeats, and over 20 gorgeous Retina Display wallpapers by K. Nitsua.

For those keeping track, it’s the 7th iNitsua theme since 2009, and the features just keep getting better:

• Highly animated HTML5 lockscreen
• Lockscreen seemlessly integrates camera roll photo, or CPBitmapConv tweak, or custom SSH image with no need for HTML editing
• Unprecedented 7 iconsets immediately available to choose from
• Highly detailed “Prestige” iconset, each icon took 30 min – 1 hr to make
• 7 icon color mods available at launch

Theming — the ability to customize the look and feel of your iPhone, your way — remains something unique to Jailbreak and with themes like iNitsua Z Twilight 3volution, it remains one of the most compelling reasons to Jailbreak.

iNitsua Twilight 3volution by K. Nitsua and Barsoverbeats is available now for iPhone 4 and iPod touch 4, with an iPad version to come. More screenshots after the break.

[$2.99 - Cydia Theme Store]

SBSettings is a wonderful little jailbreak app that adds tons of quick toggles to your iOS springboard. The one thing I don’t care for in SBSettings is the default theme. It’s just downright ugly. I get tons of questions on whether or not you can theme SBSettings like you can the rest of your springboard. The answer is yes. It’s quite simple actually. Hit the jump to find out how!

Downloading SBSettings Themes

1. Open Cydia and tap on Sections.

2. Scroll down to themes and you’ll see a section for “Themes (SBSettings)”. Browse through all the available themes for SBSettings and install the ones you like.

Changing your SBSettings theme

1. Now open SBSettings (by swiping to the right or left on your top status bar). You’ll see a “More” option. Select that and you’ll see the window below.
2. Tap the “SBSettings Themes” option. You should see some default themes and all the ones you installed.
3. Tapping the blue arrows will let you see a quick preview of each theme.

4. Simply select the theme you’d like to use by tapping it.
5. Respring your phone and your new theme should now be active!

That’s all there is to it. Try it out and let us know which themes are your favorites in the comments!

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to news@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

Cydia has pushed out a revamped themes section which allows users to search for themes depending on their device and even by featured artists. It lets users have greater discoverability and quicker access to the best of the best themes specifically for their device. Also in the update is a slightly new page layout when you choose a theme. It shows you a broad overview of what the theme will look like when installed, quick access to the package itself, and information on the artist of that theme.

Also the Theme It theme store has officially launched! Currently all the themes available are paid but free themes will be coming soon. To get the Theme It app you can visit their website or add the following repository in cydia:

http://www.themeitapp.com/repo/

So what are you waiting for? Go get your theme on and let us know what themes you download and how you like the new found theme experience! Oh and check out some screenshots after the break!

Theme It is a new site and app (via Cydia) that will feature themes for iOS. Anyone currently jailbroken knows how big of a pain it can be weeding through themes and tweaks in Cydia. Hopefully having something like Theme It will reduce some of the clutter and allow users to more efficiently browse for quality themes.

Theme It boasts to provide only the highest quality themes to their users. They’ve already gotten some of the best theme creators on board in an attempt to offer a better option for browsing themes. The app will be available via Cydia and will have an actual website as well. The counter along the top of the site shows we have less than 2 days before launch.

I know I’m looking forward to seeing if this makes me more apt to install and download themes. I don’t theme as much as I used to since weeding through Cydia for quality themes can be pretty time consuming. How many of you are excited to have a new way to browse and obtain new themes?

Demo video after the break!

[iClarified]

Sure you can get an iPhone that says AT&T or even Verizon now, but curious how to make the carrier name say anything you want? Want to put your own name, even an icon? If you’re Jailbroken and not afraid of a little hacking, we’ll show you how after the break!

While I am only showing this method for AT&T users, it can be done for non-AT&T users as well by changing the bundle and icon names in the tutorial accordingly which you can find in /System/Library/Carrier Bundles/)

Custom logos will not replace the actual system image files and can be turned on and off through Winterboard. Unlike apps like “Make it mine” which replaces system files, this customization is easily restored by unchecking the theme in Winterboard or by restoring your iPhone. This method does not make any permanent changes to your iPhone.

• Before we get started you will need to SSH into your phone and have Winterboard installed. SBSettings and iFile are greatly recommended but not absolutely necessary.

Creating Your Theme

• Go to: /private/var/stash/Themes

• Create a Folder labeled “Carrier Logo.theme”

• Inside that folder, create a folder labeled “Bundles”

• Inside that folder, create a folder labeled “com.apple.ATT_US”  [Your logos will be put into this folder which will direct winterboard to skin them accordingly.]

Creating your Logo

• You will be creating 1 logo. 2 versions: one will be against a dark background, and one will be against a white background.

You can create two different logos for the different backgrounds, but I will be creating just one for this tutorial. Also a similar method can be used for skinning the M-cell logo as well.

• For the iPhone 4: Your logo should be 73px x 40px and be named Default(underscore)CARRIER(underscore)ATT@2x.png & FSO(underscore)CARRIER(underscore)ATT@2x.png
• For the iPhone 2G, 3G, & 3GS: Your logo should be 73px x 20px and be named Default(underscore)CARRIER(underscore)ATT.png & FSO(underscore)CARRIER(underscore)ATT.png

  *These are case sensitive so make sure the files are named exactly as above.
  

You can use any picture or text as long as it is the right size. If using text make sure that your background is transparent and that your file is a png not a jpg.

Using Winterboard to Implement Theme

• Open Winterboard and make sure the Carrier Logo Theme is checked and above any other theme, as themes will override each other depending on which theme is listed above the other.
• Click the winterboard tab above and the click respring. After the respring your logo should now be changed. To go back to stock, simply uncheck the theme.

I hope you found this tutorial helpful and remember to have fun!

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to . (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward.)

Ever hated an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad app icon and wondered how you could change it, or gotten tired of a low-res icon on your gorgeous Retina Display and wished you could set up something custom? Well if you’re jailbroken and running Winterboard, you can. We’ll show you how after the break!

Winterboard lets you customize many aspects of your iPhone and iPad’s appearance, including custom icons. Custom icons will not replace the actual image files and can be turned on and off through Winterboard. As icons are usually part of a theme, you should know that only icons for apps purchased through the App Store are automatically skinned by most themes. iOS apps such as Photos, Compass, Settings, etc. will not be automatically skinned and must be specially done for each theme. All jailbreak apps (apps from Cydia) will likewise not not be auto-skinned and must be made to fit your theme if that is what you are trying to accomplish.

Before we get started you will need to SSH into your phone and have Winterboard installed. SBSettings and iFile are greatly recommended but not absolutely necessary.

Creating Your Theme

• Go to: /private/var/stash/Themes
• Create a Folder labeled “Custom Icons.theme”

• Inside that folder, create a folder labeled “Bundles” – All your icons will be put into this folder which will direct winterboard to skin them accordingly.

Finding Icons to Skin

There are online databases for this information, but since icons and apps are often updated, this method will show you how to find them on your own.

The best method is to use SBSettings and click the “More” icon.

• Scroll to the bottom and click on “App Folders”
• Click on the app you are looking to skin, and mark down the folder name.

• Use iFile or your SSH browser and go to the location you marked down.
• Inside that folder there will be another folder, usually the name of the app with “.app” after it. Open that folder.

• Find Info.plist and open it. You will be looking for a line labeled “CFBundleIdentifier” and the string directly below it. Mark down the name of the bundle listed in the string, it will look something like “com.company.appname” This will be the name of your bundle folder that you will be making.

• In the same folder where you found Info.plist, find the icon you wish to replace. This step is often tricky, and might require trial and error until the correct file name is found. Usually the icon will be labled Icon.png or Icon@2x.png if it is a retina quality icon. Remember this file name is case sensitive.

• Go back into your Custom Icons.theme/Bundles folder and make a new folder labeled with what you found to be the CFBundleIdentifier (i.e. “com.company.appname”). Your Icon will go here. Now that you have both the icon name and the bundle name, its time to make an icon.

Making Icons

• If you are making icons for a device with a Retina display you can make them 118×120. If on a non-retina display, they should be 59×60. I use Adobe Photoshop to make my icons from pictures I find on the web. It does not matter what size the original icon is. Only what device you are currently on. You can skin a non-retina quality (59×60) icon with a retina quality (118×120) icon.

• Once you have your icon, you need to label it exactly like the icon you are skinning, again it must be case sensitive.

• Place the icon in your newly created bundle folder.

Using Winterboard to Implement Theme

• Open Winterboard and make sure the Custom Icons Theme is checked and above any other theme, as themes will override each other depending on which theme is listed above the other.

• Your device will respring and your icon should now appear. If it did not appear, double check the icon and bundle name to make sure they are exactly the same as the ones you have created.

I hope you found this tutorial helpful and remember to have fun! If you have any questions ask in comments or get expert help in our Jailbreak Theme Forum!

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward.)

With the powerful free Winterboard app on Cydia for Jailbroken iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches, you are able to easily and quickly change the entire aesthetic look of iOS. While this feature is nothing new, the Retina Display has allowed for a whole new level of artistry and themeing fun! Retina quality HD themes are popping up daily on the Cydia store and TiPb.com brings you our Top 5 best HD themes after the break!

EnVy HD by JunesiPhone

An HD remake of the popular EnVy theme, this gorgeous and full Retina quality theme was only released a week ago but is quickly becoming a favorite of the jailbreak community. The theme includes an animated lockscreen, 4 Icon sets, slideshow wallpaper, themed notes, weather, calculator, camera, phone, SMS interface, mail, safari, and much more to come including color mods, Animated Weather, and more animated lockscreens. EnVy HD is available on Cydia for $2.99.

Timeless HD by Bluemetal

Timeless HD is a truly elegant and streamlined theme for those who don’t care for extravagant colors and want a more professional look. Bluemetal has really taken his time to design a Full HD-UI, including iPod, Notes, Dialer, Lockscreen, Battery, LockInfo, SBSettings, Compass, Safari, Mail, Messages, Weather, Loading screens, and 3 fully featured springboard widgets. Timeless HD is available on Cydia for $2.49.

G.O.C. HD by ToyVan

Tired of all the square icon themes? G.O.C. HD is a full Retina quality theme with stunning rounded icons and layout. The entire theme has been designed for a very clean, simple, yet fully customizable look. With different color layouts to choose from and even a lockscreen desgined by K. Nitsua, this has become one of the most popular HD themes on Cydia. G.O.C HD is available on Cydia for $2.99.

Elite Pro HD by BarsOverBeats

As previously seen on TiPb.com, Elite Pro HD has become one of the most popular themes for the iPhone since winterboard was released. This full featured and customizable HD theme has included everything but the kitchen sink to bring you a completely new UI experience. With several lockscreens from K. Nitsua and widgets from Floppy Joe and others, Elite HD Pro will keep you customizing for hours on end. Elite Pro HD is available on Cydia for $2.99.

iNitsua Twilight Z HD by Zausser/K.Nitsua

Also previously seen on TiPb.com, iNitsua Twilight Z HD brings the talents of two of the best theme artists together in Zausser and K. Nitsua to give you one of the most fully featured and high quality Retina UI themes available. This gorgeously constructed theme comes with numerous weather widgets, animated lock screen themes, pin entry skins, plus endless user contributed mods and color options. iNitusa Z Twilight HD is available on Cydia for $2.99.

Your favorite theme?

As always, this is a list of our favorite themes here on TiPb. We know you guys have favorites too, so let us know what you think in the comments below or by posting in our Jailbreak Theme Forums!

From the expert theme designers of Xhd and iNSPIRED comes iNitsua Z Twilight HD for the iPhone 4. Zausser and K. Nitsua have created a breathtaking Retina quality theme that skins every UI element of the iPhone 4 from the keypad to the SMS messaging interface. This full featured theme is to be used on Jailbroken iPhones with the Winterboard app and comes with numerous weather widgets, animated lock screen themes, pin entry skins, and even comes with a non Retina port for the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. iNitusa Z Twilight HD is available on Cydia for $2.99.

As with all of Zausser and K. Nitsua’s themes, most of the fun is derived from customization. iNitsua Z Twilight HD comes with PSDs to easily customize different aspects of the theme and to make your own custom icons. There is already a large library of user made add on packs that allow you to change the color schemes, install different weather widgets and lock screens, iAccess keyboard skins, or add custom icon and SBSetting packs.

Check out the stunning pictures after the break but keep in mind that Retina quality themes look much better on a Retina display than on your computer screen. Excited about all the HD theme’s coming to the iPhone 4? Questions about Winterboard and theme customization? Leave us a comment or visit our Jailbreak forums!

What are the top 5 best, or just our most favorite, Jailbreak apps and tweaks for iPhone? That’s something we get asked a lot in comments, in the forums, and during the podcast chat. Cydia is filled with wonderful tools and applications to enhance your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. In this version, we’re going to look at the top 5 jailbroken apps or tweaks to help you make the best of your iPhone experience. Some of these may apply to other devices as well, but we’ll strictly be looking at the iPhone variants. Hit the break for what we think are 5 jailbreak utilities every jailbreaker should check out!

Winterboard

Winterboard is a must have if you intend to apply themes to your iPhone or customize the interface. Of course, you can always SSH and install themes on your own, but Winterboard will make almost everyone’s lives a lot easier. A lot of the times, if you download a theme that has a dependency on Winterboard, it’ll automatically install it for you. Once you’ve got Winterboard installed, browse Cydia for themes and UI tweaks you’d like to put on your phone. The great thing about Winterboard is that it works as a hierarchy. Say you download a theme but you don’t like the sounds. You can download a sound pack from Cydia you do like, check it in Cydia and drag it above the main theme. It will then override the theme’s default sounds with the ones you’ve selected. It’s an amazingly powerful tool that allows you to customize your iPhone just the way you’d like.

YouTube Link

SBSettings

SBSettings is more of a tweak than an actual app. It will allow you to add quick toggles to your springboard. You’ll swipe your status bar (or whatever gesture you prefer to configure with Activator), and it’ll show a drop down with several options. It also monitors your available memory, which is a nice added feature. It comes with several toggles built in such as wifi, 3G, bluetooth, brightness, and airplane mode. There are a lot of times I want to toggle some of these settings to save battery life. It’s much easier to swipe my status bar and tap the ones I’d like to toggle than to dig through the settings panel for each individual setting and flip them off.

SBSettings also allows you to hide apps on your springboard. I personally prefer to hide some of the Apple default applications that I never use such as stocks, weather, compass, and a few others. You can still spotlight search for them but it hides them on your springboard. There are also many other tweaks and add-ons for SBSettings in Cydia, including themes.

YouTube Link

Folder Enhancing Applications

Under 4.x, Apple gave us the ability to create folders. Yet again, Apple limited the functionality of this feature. You can’t create subfolders and you can only have 12 applications per folder. I have about 50 games installed on my iPhone at any given point. It’s a pain to have to create 5 folders just for games. Apps like Folder Enhancer and Infinifolders seek to solve this problem. They give you the ability to create sub-folders within a folder. Not only that, it removes the app limit cap. Now I can have several applications in one folder. And if I choose, I can create sub-folders. I have all my games in one folder, then divided by sub-categories such as RPG, Strategy, Action, etc. Folder Enhancer will allow you to change the folder background image as well.

Text Message Replacement or Add-On Applications

Although Apple’s default texting app is visually appealing, it’s still got a long way to go in terms of functionality. Enter apps like BiteSMS, iRealSMS, & QuickReply for SMS. These apps pick up where Apple has left us hanging. I personally prefer BiteSMS but iReal is also an acceptable solution. I wouldn’t recommend purchasing QuickReply for SMS as the dev has announced he isn’t updating it any further. It’s been rumored to go free any day now.

My biggest gripe with Apple’s default texting app is that it’s obtrusive and forces me to enter the app when I want to compose a text or reply to one. With apps such as BiteSMS, I can simply create a gesture that will bring up a quick compose screen. I can easily and quickly send a text without it interrupting my work-flow. When I receive a text, I can simply tap a reply button and reply without having to enter the texting app. BiteSMS is also highly configurable. You can configure options and tab through them on the QuickReply window. Options range from adding options such as reply, open, call, skype, delete, and many others.

BiteSMS and iRealSMS also have the option to show contact pictures in line with your text messages. This is a feature I wish Apple would have added to contacts and texting a long time ago. For now, apps like BiteSMS and iRealSMS will give you that functionality until Apple decides to.

MyWi and My3G

Network add-on applications are also a welcome addition to the jailbreak community. For those of us lowly users in the United States, AT&T likes to charge a ridiculous amount for tethering. MyWi allows you to turn your iPhone into a wireless hotspot. I use this feature frequently to tether my iPad. Until some carriers come to the realization that data is data and if we’re paying for it, we should be able to use it how we like, apps like MyWi and My3G are essential.

My3G allows you to trick your phone into thinking your on Wifi. This is useful if you’re in 3G and would like to download an app that is over 20MB. Simply turn on My3G and you’re iPhone will assume you’re on wifi and it’ll bypass Apple’s 20MB cap on network downloads. My3G also allows you to use FaceTime over 3G as well. There are several other apps available in Cydia like My3G so you can take your pick. Some of the others are 3G Unrestrictor, FaceTime over 3G, and Facebreak. You can choose from whichever suits your needs the best.

Your top 5?

As always, this is a list of our favorite jailbreak applications here on TiPb that we think all jailbreakers should at least check out. We know you guys have favorites too, so let us know in the comments! If you’re new to jailbreak or thinking about jailbreaking your phone, check out our guide to jailbreak terms and tools and if you need extra help, dive into our Jailbreak Apps Forum.

EliteProHD is a fully customized Jailbreak theme that skins almost every aspect of iOS 4.1 from the standard apps to the iPhone keypad. It also come with a ton of skinned icons for Cydia apps and auto skins all appstore apps. What’s more, because of how iOS 4.1 works, themes can now use Retina Display versions of the UIImages, which designer BarsOverBeats has quickly implemented in his release of EliteProHD.

Included in the package is a stunning weather widget, an animated lockscreen theme, custom sounds, and numerous colored versions for more further customization. For advanced users, Photoshop templates are even included to make your own icons.

Look for it on the Cydia store, and check out more pics after the break.

by Farbod

The jailbreak community offers an abundance of tools that allow you to make your iPhone fit your personality and mood.  If you’re anything like me, I can be pretty picky about layouts and exactly how my phone is set up.  I want all my most frequently used apps in one place, neat and tidy, and ready to use.

For some iPhone users, that plain black background and all the stock icons get pretty boring.  I change my theme on my iPhone a couple times a month, if not more.  There are several jailbreak tools that can help turn your iPhone from boring, to brilliant.

There’s always one problem with paid and free themes, you get what the theme developer gives you.  There may be some theme elements you don’t like at all, or ones that are missing that you’d like to add.  There are several ways to edit themes and customize them to fit you individually. Today, we’ll show you how to do just that.

There’s a couple things you’ll need in order to do this:

1. Winterboard – Free via Cydia and Rock
2. Custom theme – This can be your choice, paid or free. I chose iTopSB for this tutorial by ToyVan, available in Cydia and Rock for $1.99
3. OpenSSH – Free via Cydia and Rock
4. SBSettings – Convenient to toggle SSH and other settings on and off, Free via Cydia and Rock
5. iWipeCache – Clears your springboard cache for you instead of having to do it manually, Free via Cydia and Rock
6. SSHClient – Several free and paid available for PC and Mac. Here’s an earlier article that links to popular choices
7. Optional installs: iBlank, FontSwap, CategoriesSB (there is a free version but I highly recommend CategoriesSB over plain Categories, it’s worth the $0.99), FiveiRows, FiveIconDock (I say optional as these are totally user preference and not neccessary if you don’t want them – they’re all free so give them a try, you can always disable and they’ll be there later if you want to use them with a different theme at some other point).

First thing I recommend doing is going into your iPhone’s settings and turn the auto-lock to never. You can do this by going to Settings, General, Auto-Lock, and check Never.  Sometimes if your phone goes to sleep while you’re making changes to the file system via SSH, it’ll disconnect you and certain files may not transfer.  I also recommend having your phone charging throughout the SSH process. Using SSH and having the backlight on constantly will deplete your battery pretty quick.

Next, toggle SSH on via SBSettings if you haven’t already.

Now you’ll need to open your SSH client on your computer and SSH into your phone. If you aren’t sure how to do this, read this article first. Your iPhone’s IP address is also easily found via SBSettings as seen in the above screenshot.

After you have gotten into the main file system of your iPhone, you’ll need to go into your Themes folder. The easiest way to do this is with the shortcuts in the main directory.  Just go to Library, Themes.

Now I can see a list of all my themes that I have installed via Winterboard.  Before continuing on, I think it’s imperative to explain a little about why Winterboard is such a powerful tool.  Some themes can be customized completely without even having to SSH into your iPhone with the use of Winterboard alone.  Lets say for example, I have a theme I bought through Cydia, but I don’t like the chat bubbles.  That’s something I can fix easily via Winterboard.  I can download chat bubbles I do like, select them in Winterboard, and just drag them higher up in Winterboard than the main theme. My chat bubbles will now override the chat bubbles in the theme.  That’s because Winterboard works as a hierarchy.  Things at the top take precedence over those further down in the list.

Use this to your advantage.  Sometimes I don’t like the sounds a theme comes with, so I’ll simply download a sound pack I do like, drag it higher than the theme in Winterboard, and it overrides the theme default sounds.  This is especially useful for times when you’re not near a computer and need a quick fix.  It doesn’t replace the power of actual editing via SSH, but it’s definitely useful.

Alright, now for editing a theme.  I chose iTopSB for this example.  This is a very beautiful and extensive theme but there are certain things that just don’t suit my taste in this theme, so I want to remove them.

These are the items I’m going to remove in this tutorial:

• Splash/loading screens
• Lock background
• Arrow UI elements inside the mail app

Another tip, I always copy the entire theme to my desktop on my iMac. Then I rename it something like “iTopSB Edited” and drag it back over.  That’s the copy I edit.  Then, when you receive updates via Rock and Cydia for a theme, you don’t have to do this process everytime.  It’ll update the main theme and not your edited theme.  Then you can go apply the main theme, see if there’s any new additions you’d like to bring over to your edit version, and do that if need be.  It makes life much easier than re-tweaking a theme everytime an update is issued.

Alright, first thing in our list is splash screens.  These always irritate me in themes. I know some people really like them, but to me, all they do is increase the time it takes for an app to load and be useful.  Therefore, I remove them.

Splash screens are typically located inside the main theme folder in a folder called “Folders”.  Inside that folder, you’ll fine typical stock and popular apps that the developer has made splash screens for. You’ll have to go into each of these folders and delete the splash screen PNG in order to get rid of them.  Depending on what you need/want from that folder, you can sometimes get away with just deleting the entire “Folders” folder with no damage to the theme but ridding yourself of splash screens and other extra UI tweaks that aren’t technically necessary.

Again, this is all a matter of personal preference.  Some people like extra UI images and tweaks.  To me, I may want my iPhone to look different, but I don’t want the UI bogged down. I still want a clean look, not cluttered.  This is why I always clean up themes to suit my personal taste.  I figure if anything, this process will teach some of you how to find what you’re looking for when deleting theme elements and get you more comfortable with the folder systems and where to find things inside a theme folder.

Alright, I’ve found my splash screens, and in my case, since there was nothing inside that specific folder I wanted, I’ve went ahead and deleted it completely in my edited theme.

Next we move to the lock background.  I typically like my own picture on my lockscreen.  So I’ll just go into the main theme folder and delete the file called LockBackground.png.  That’s it.  Pretty easy, eh?

For our final deletion, we’ll have to find what UI element is creating the little pesky arrows in the mail app that I’m just not to crazy about.  And keep in mind, you aren’t always going to know exactly where these elements are. There are a few different ways theme developers can form their file structure. So where I may put certain UI elements, another developer may choose another folder syntax.  For the most part, it’s universal, but certain things, such as Icons, can be done a few ways.  Most SSH clients have nice preview features that allow you to preview files and see if it’s what you’re looking for.

In my case, most of the culprits were always found in Library/Themes/”ThemeName”/Folders or Library/Themes/”ThemeName”/UIImages

You’ll probably have the most luck looking for things in those two locations.  Check out the video for a walkthrough and a couple other tips and tricks!

And as always, if there’s something you really can’t figure out or find, leave it below or in the forums!

YouTube Link

One of the most common topics in the jailbreak forums is always theme editing and customization.  To really be able to truly customize a theme, you need to know how to SSH into your iPhone.  Anyone who is already familiar with web development and using an FTP client should be right at home.  For the most part, FTP clients are also capable of SSH.  If you don’t have a client, don’t worry, there’s plenty of free ones.

And now for the typical disclaimer – if you aren’t comfortable messing with your phone’s file system and the possibility of having to completely restore if something goes wrong, don’t proceed any further. As always, we aren’t responsible for any damage you may do to your phone, so proceed at your own risk.  If this all sounds okay to you, read on iPhone ninja!

1.  Download an FTP client. In the video, I’m using CyberDuck, which is a Mac client for FTP. You can also use Fugu or iPhone Explorer.  If you’re a windows user, iPhone Explorer has a Windows version or you can use something like SmartFTP.

2.  Install OpenSSH and SBSettings to your iPhone.  Most of you probably already have SBSettings, but you’ll need OpenSSH to be able to access your iPhone’s file system.

And don’t forget, at some point, change your iPhone’s root and user passwords!  If you need help with this, jump over to the Forums.  OpenSSH and SBSettings can both be downloaded through Cydia or Rock, your preference.  SBSettings isn’t necessary, but it gives you a very easy way to toggle SSH on and off.  Here’s a ninja tip, whenever you aren’t actively using SSH, turn it off. It not only further protects you from unauthorized access, but SSH is a huge battery hog.  So when you’re not using it, just switch it off.

3.  Alright now that we’ve got that taken care of, you’ll need to do one of the following after SSH is enabled on your iPhone:

• iPhone Explorer users – plug in your phone and launch iPhone Explorer and it should automatically populate your iPhone file system, then skip to step 5
• Most other FTP clients – be on a wifi network and find your iPhone’s IP and jot it down, it’s found under Settings –> Wi-Fi –> click the blue arrow next to the network you are connected to, once you have that, launch your FTP client

Click the blue arrow, like in the image below, IP address is what you’re looking for, write it down.

4.  For FTP users, you’ll need to enter your iPhone’s IP address and make sure the port is set to 22.  Your username is root and the default password is ‘alpine’ (without the quotes).  Then click connect or continue.  If you’re successful, you should now have a list of all your iPhone’s files.  (Note: over wi-fi, you don’t have to have your iPhone plugged in, but I’d recommend it so it doesn’t kill your battery)

5.  You’ll now see a list of files you can navigate through, to get to your themes for editing, simply click Library —> Themes and all the themes you’ve downloaded should be in there.  Next jump down to the video for a walk-through of how to alter/change/add files in existing themes as well as create your own custom themes! And one more ninja tip, go into Settings –> Autolock –> Never. Sometimes when you’re SSH’ing and your screen goes off, your SSH client will give you an error, so turn off auto-lock while you’re customizing.

YouTube Link

Yesterday’s iPhone 4.0 sneak preview event gave us 7 new “tent-pole” features, 1500 new APIs for developers, and once again took Apple’s mobile OS a step closer to feature parity and a step further towards elegant functionality… but we didn’t get everything we wanted. And no matter how hard we tried, we found we didn’t even get everything we needed. In other words, iPhone 4.0 is still missing out in some key areas. Even though we got some good stuff, this is what we didn’t get:

• No new Home Screen/SpringBoard. We understand that Apple has 85,000,000 legacy users now trained on the iPhone Home Screen system (aka the same app launcher metaphor going back to the days of PalmOS). We knew when Apple said as much during the iPad announcements that they weren’t going to confuse that “already trained” customer base. It’s the price of being an established OS, after all. So Apple didn’t radically re-invent the Home Screen. They did make it layered — it can lift up to show you multitasking apps and slit open to show you apps inside folders — but that’s it. And part of “that’s it” means…

• No themes. You get wallpaper and that’s where your customization ends. You still can’t remove built-in apps (though you can hide them in a folder so they take less space). You can’t chance the look of icons. There’s no animated backgrounds to be had. More disappointingly, however…

• No widgets. Want to know the latest weather, Facebook or Twitter updates, or stick a big clock on the screen? There’s an app for all of that, sure, but you have to go into and out of each individual app and the Home Page remains a giant grid of uninformative icons. Android and Nokia have had widgets for a while now, webOS lets you flick between live Cards, and Windows Phone 7 will have live tiles. iPhone… will be waiting on 5.0? More’s the pity too because…

• No new notification system. We got local notifications, so there’s some measure of offline alerts, but they’re trapped in the same single, modal, popup hell that’s existed since iPhone 3.0. (And it’s particularly ludicrous on the iPad!). Again, still, if you get a couple SMS, a few Twitter DMs, a game challenge or two, and calendar reminder, and then an IM, you’ll only ever know that IM existed — everything else is completely and utterly destroyed in terms of notifications, and while some apps will badge with a number for unread items, you have to go find them and that’s “pull”, not “push”. Maybe this is also a 5.0 feature…

A lot of other stuff failed to put in an appearance as well.

• Apps can now embed SMS, but why isn’t that a system-wide, OS level, quick-reply API included in the alerts?
• Calendar still has no week view. iPad calendar rotates to landscape, why can’t iPhone?
• Photos gets Faces and Places, but no MobileMe or other syncing abilities. It’s 2010, isn’t it?
• Weather is still 1.0. Even stocks has been updated. Compared to HTC’s weather, it’s in the dust.
• Settings are still bound to an app. You can’t tap the title bar to quickly toggle Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or any of a half-dozen other useful things.
• Mail gets universal inbox, threaded messages, and fast switching, but still no IMAP IDLE (at least GoogleSync can now be used alongside ActiveSync, but still…)
• Safari still lacks Flash, Java, or any other plugin and likely always will. But it should really have gotten in-page text string search.
• iPad gets orientation lock via a hardware switch where the iPhone’s mute switch is located. How about at least a software gesture?
• What about a universal “back” gesture while we’re at it as well? Tapping the title bar auto-scrolls a list to top, couldn’t swiping from right to left take us back to the previous screen, in every app?

iPhone 4.0 was full of functional goodness, no doubt about it. Perhaps we’ll even see one or two more come WWDC in June (Mobile iChat video?) Even given Apple’s size, there are limitations of time and resources that mean they have to choose what features get done now and what get left for later. You can’t have everything immediately. Did doing multitasking come at the expense of doing notifications this time around? (or did iAd?) Maybe. But that’s for Apple to decide and for us, the users, to take them to task over.

And, oh yeah, there’s still no built in task app (or sync).

Anything else missing from iPhone 4.0 that really ought to have been in there?

iMuggle Productions has released their first theme for Jailbroken iPhones — iTopple. It is available in Rock and Cydia for $1.99, and boasts of being “sleek, clean, and simple”. Included with iTopple are:

• beautiful gradient wallpapers
• 350+ icons (and growing)
• complete SMS chatkit
• iPod controls
• battery meters (charging and status bar)
• status bar
• custom wifi bars

iMuggle Productions recommends that for the best look, use iTopple with Reflective Dock (free) and icon labels turned off. If you pick this one up, let us know what you think!

More screenshots after the break!

Redmond Pie has a nifty tutorial up for those who want to give their Jailbroken iPhone and/or iPod touch an iPad look-and-feel (or just a hint of iPhone 3.2!). Here’s what you need:

• Winterboard
• “Simple iPad Theme”
• MakeItMine app
• Shrink app
• ProSwitcher
• NYTimes app
• Classics app
• Kindle app

Making your old device look like an unreleased new device is hallmark of the hacking community (hey, I had the marimba ringtone and iPhone theme on my Treo 680 for months!), so if you want to get your iPad on, check out Redmond Pie and the video after the break!

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.