With the debut of iPhone’s App Store along with the release of iPhone firmware 2.0, it was speculated that the App Store would replace Cydia as the central repository of iPhone apps.
Many thought that there would be no point of jailbreaking the iPhone to use Cydia. However, one iPhone App that seems to have convinced many iPhone users to jailbreak their iPhone is WinterBoard as you still can’t find iPhone applications like WinterBoard on the App Store.
For those who do not know what WinterBoard is, let’s see how WinterBoard can transform your iPhone.
Cool, right?
WinterBoard, developed by Jay Freeman (aka Saurik) lets you apply themes to your iPhone, just like what you apply themes to the Windows desktop. Saurik has also developed the popular installer app, Cydia and free and very popular video recording iPhone app, Cycorder).
Long-time jailbreak iPhone users may have used SummerBoard to customize their iPhones (on older version of firmware). WinterBoard is a replacement of SummerBoard for iPhone firmware 2.x.x. It incorporates all features available in SummerBoard, including customization of applications, status bar graphics, wallpaper and replacement of graphic for the bottom docking. And, with the design principle to theme every stuff on iPhone in mind, WinterBoard adds some terrific new features over SummerBoard:
- Video Wallpaper – Bored with static wallpaper. You can install video wallpaper in video form (.mp4). We had reported about an iPhone App called vWallpaper that allowed you to do that.
- Sound customization – Customize all kinds of system sounds.
- Web clips – Let you theme the web clips also.
- Lock Background – Customize the background of lock screen.
- SMS Background – Theme the SMS bubbles.
- Keyboard – Change the look & feel of iPhone keyboard.
- Calculator – Customize calculator background.
Another great feature of WinterBoard is that there is no limit on the themes you can install and you can also mix & match several themes together. That means you may have a Leopard theme installed from one source and mix it with Tiger icon set from another. The WinterBoard interface allows you to set the priority of different themes to be loaded.
You can find many themes on Cydia which can be downloaded for free. WinterBoard is backward compatible with SummerBoard themes which means you can install both WinterBoard and SummerBoard themes.
How to use WinterBoard
- First, of course, you have to jailbreak your iPhone and install with Cydia
- Next, fire up Cydia and search for WinterBoard.
- Install WinterBoard.
- In Cydia, go to "Sections" and look for "Themes (Springboard)".
- You can find various WinterBoard/SummerBoard themes. Install one or two.
- Launch WinterBoard. Tap to tick the installed theme.
- Click "Home" button and WinterBoard will load up the theme
WinterBoard like the Categories app has been around for quite a while so it will great if you can share your feedback on this application if you have used it before in the comments below for the benefit of fellow readers.
If this is the first time you are hearing about it, I am sure you will enjoy customizing your iPhone with WinterBoard and make your iPhone look a lot cooler than it already is and don’t forget to share your experience here.
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