I am just enough of a geek to have been really bummed when I realized that my new iPhone didn’t allow for much user level customization. The look and feel was pretty static.
Coming from a WinMobile 5 device, I was surprised when I found myself missing some of the features I had come to rely on. The “Today” main screen was the one item I really missed most, but I also missed not being able to install themes to really make the look and feel of my iPhone, well, MINE.
A bit of surfing, and I found that some great people out there have been hacking away and building themes and apps for the iPhone, outside of Apple’s ‘blessing’.
Of course, the only way to GET these apps and themes, and to give myself filesystem access to my new device, is to “Jailbreak” my iPhone. A bit of warning here though… some people have bricked their iphone something fierce when attempting (and screwing up) the jailbreak process.
I took some time over lunch yesterday and revisited a few pages I have saved, so I could ensure that I had the process down and understood. A few minutes later I had a successfully jailbroken iPhone. W00T!
A few minutes after that, I had some native apps installed, new themes, and most importantly, a new skin fro the dialer app. Yes, I am that much of a nerd that I went through the whole process of jailbreaking my iPhone just to get the “Retro Dialer v2.5” skin installed. But check it out; this is one WICKED cool skin:
I also found a theme that is both different from the stock UI and still usable while looking good:
And of course, I installed a native app to turn my lock screen into my sorely missed “Today” screen with my Calendar, any new emails/sms messages, and the Weather report:
