The Minimalist’s Guide to a Jailbroken iPhone

Note: While the focus of this article is on iPhone jailbreakers, some of the content applies to all iPhone users.

I did it. I finally did it. After months of humming and harring I finally jailbroke my iPhone. And no, it was much less of a big deal than I’d imagined. By the sound of it jailbreaking sounds like some ultra-geeky covert operation that could get you a life sentence. In reality it’s no more than pushing a button and then getting some extra features for your phone.

The big question though is “why?” There’s a million different reasons you may want to jailbreak your iPhone, and honestly it’s very dependent on what matters to you.

What nearly turned me to the dark side recently was the BTStack Keyboard application that lets you use a Bluetooth keyboard with your phone in any text field. But even that wasn’t enough (and I can assure you that was a feature I was previously dying for).

What finally encouraged me to make the switch was reading a post from Shawn Blanc about his jailbroken iPhone, which pushed me past the tipping point after seeing plenty of minimalist home screens on blogs like Minimal Mac. They were all too sleek to ignore.

But that’s sort of a vague answer, so here are a few clear-cut reasons why I jailbroke my iPhone, and why you may want to do the same…

• You get an amazing level of customization to do all sorts of crazy things, although the simple changes, like modifying application icons are the most satisfying.
• There are better user interfaces for the iPhone available. I love the default UI but after a while it can feel a bit dull. Being able to liven it up and personalize it feels great.
• It’s a minimalist’s dream. And that’s the biggest reason I made the switch. I just wanted to make the software do the things that are important to me, and get rid of all the other crap. Jailbreaking lets that happen.

There’s a good chance you’re still thinking: but what if…? The idea of “hacking” your phone can be somewhat scary, but I can assure you that your fears (which were once my fears) are groundless:

• Jailbreaking is reversible. Backup your data via iTunes before going through with the process and then if, for whatever reason, your iPhone starts playing up, simply restore that backup and everything’s fine and dandy.
• Still as snappy as ever. What turned me off from jailbreaking was the fact that readers informed me that it can slow down your phone. And I still believe that it could, but so far I’ve noticed no significant lag. Don’t go overboard with customizations and you should be fine.
• Completely harmless. The jailbreaking community seems like a shady internet cult, but that’s not the case at all. Aside from the unfortunate aspect of piracy (which I do not support) all this process allows you to do is make your phone more like the phone you want.

And now that that’s all cleared up, let’s get to it…

How To Jailbreak Your iPhone

Okay, this is just too easy:

1. Download Blackra1n (available for both Windows and Mac).
2. Follow these instructions (and install Cydia in the process).

All you’re doing is connecting your iPhone to your computer, pushing a button and then waiting a few seconds. Surprisingly unexciting. Afterwards it’s time to launch Cydia – the jailbroken counterpart to the app store – and get some…

Jailbroken Applications

Isn’t this what it’s all about? Having only been a jailbreaker for a short time I’m sure there are lots of other great apps I’ve missed out on, so feel free to share some in the comments, but here are some of the top ones that most folks will fall in love with. Install the following tools by searching for them via the Cydia app.

Poof. You know all those lame default applications like Stocks and Weather? Wouldn’t it be great if you could hide them completely from view? This is what Poof does. And what’s great is, you can still access these applications via Spotlight if you wish.

SBSettings. One of the most irritating features with the iPhone by default is that you have to go into the Settings application to turn Bluetooth, Wi-Fi etc on and off. SBSettings makes it so you just have to swipe the status bar at the top of your phone, and no matter what app you’re using you’re able to quickly change settings with no fuss at all. Using this lets you hide the Settings app with Poof without any hesitation.

OpenSSH. We’ll be using this app later to customize the application icons, but don’t leave it installed for too long. It’s used for accessing your phone’s files via a computer, but most people forget to change the default password and there have been numerous exploitations through this oversight. You can change the password though if you want to keep the app on your phone.

Winterboard. The premier user interface customization application. You’ll need this to use most of the available themes, and out of the box you are given a few toggles like making the dock transparent, or hiding the labels beneath icons.

Regular Applications

For a true minimalist the source of the apps doesn’t matter, and while this article is mostly jailbroken-centric, there are a few key apps that I felt tie in perfectly with the simplicity mindset and can be appreciated by hackers and non-hackers alike.

Facebook. Do I need to explain this? It’s the Facebook iPhone app…there’s not much more to say. But for the sake of blabbing on perhaps the best “feature” of this app is that you’re not inundated with ads, and just a lot of the crap that is making it into the web interface. In that sense it’s very minimalist.

Byline. For a while I used Fever as my primary feed reader and for reading lots of blogs it’s probably the best option. These days I subscribe to far fewer blogs however and am less clingy to needing to know everything about all the industries that concern me.

Because of this change I’ve moved back to using Google Reader, but allow myself to only access it via Byline, a sleek iPhone app that allows you to sync and cache content from Reader for offline viewing. No other feed reader in the app store comes close in terms of functionality and user interface.

RSS Player. These days I watch less TV and consume more of my entertainment through podcasts. One huge oversight from Apple though is that you can’t subscribe to podcasts by default, forcing you to download them individually or sync via a computer.

RSS Player fixes this problem by letting your subscribe to any podcast you wish (both video and audio) and, this is the real kicker, you’ll be sent Push notifications as new episodes are released. It’s a beautiful app and, if you wish you can get a jailbroken version (I believe by the same guy) known as Podcaster. I mention the non-jailbroken version though because it’s the one I own and I believe it’s an updated version.

Simplenote. I used Poof to hide the default Notes app and now use Simplenote as my primary note-taking application because it allows for syncing to the web and desktop applications. Read more about this below in the “Best Practices” section of this article.

Tweetie 2. You probably already own this if you use Twitter and have an iPhone, but if you don’t: buy it. The interface has the highest honors any interface can receive in that it is fun to use. That may not bode well for productivity junkies who will certainly get sucked into Twitter streams for no clear reason, but don’t let the time-suck factor turn you off.

WriteRoom. While similar to Simplenote in many ways, and probably unnecessary in as many ways for most people, WriteRoom for iPhone (from the same developer of WriteRoom on the Mac) is important to me because it:

• Lets me separate my notes and longer text documents (such as blog posts, which I have written on the iPhone before) into two separate apps.
• Has an ingenious method of creating a distraction free writing environment (just pinch the screen outwards and your canvas becomes a black screen with a keyboard – and that’s it).
• Syncs with SimpleText.ws (made by the same developer) which is the writing environment I use as a replacement for OmmWriter when I don’t have access to my Mac.

Oh, and a nice little touch is you don’t need to register a new account, you just attach it to your Google account.

Best Practices

It’s not all glitz and glamor. Minimalism is more of a philosophy, an approach, rather than a set of tools. These are some philosophies you may like to adopt.

Hide and seek. Look through every app on your iPhone and question yourself: do I need this? And don’t automatically respond with “Yes” just because you think you need an app. Have you actually used it recently? Have you got it installed “just in case” an unlikely event could perhaps occur if the stars align? Be ruthless with deleting the unnecessary.

But there are some apps that we do need. Ironically, you don’t want apps like Poof sitting around on your home screen, so in those cases you’ll want to use Poof to hide itself, and all those necessary, but rarely used apps from view. And don’t forget, you can still access these apps via Spotlight. Even apps like Maps I still choose to hide because I so infrequently need GPS.

If done ruthlessly and correctly I feel it’s realistic to fit all of your apps on a single screen, which is exactly what I’ve done using only the dock and four rows. It’s hard to describe, but there’s something soothing about seeing all the phone’s capabilities that I use on a single page, and knowing that there’s no junk just a swipe away.

Sync. While a big focus of minimalism is design, it’s not everything. How your phone functions is a key part to keeping things simple and your tech life under control. That’s where syncing comes in.

We’re getting to a point where accessing data on one centric device feels old and with the rise of apps like Evernote and Instapaper, it’s sort of silly to cling to tools that restrict you to a central location or medium. One change I’ve made that shows this, is the hiding of the default Notes app, to be replaced by Simplenote, available in the app store.

Simplenote, as of writing this, is a free, ad-based application (you can pay $12 per year or so to remove adds and get access to other advanced features) designed to help you take notes. The interface is clean, simple, and what you’d expect from an app with such a simple concept.

What’s so fantastic though is that it syncs with the web, allowing you to access it via a web application (which isn’t amazing, but usable all the same) but, arguably more importantly, also via desktop applications like Nottingham and, soon, Notational Velocity.

You don’t need to be connected to the net to use Simplenote, so in reality at the very least it’s no different from the default Notes app, but when it is connected the functionality is multiplied 10x and is a must-have for any minimalist iPhone power user.

Themes

Apple are masters of the user interface. But even so, they design for the masses, and with that choice can come a disconnect with your personal tastes. Luckily this the area jailbreaking truly excels in: theme customization.

The basic for customizing your theme lies in Winterboard. With just the app itself you’re given a few options such as “Transparent Dock” and “No Undocked Icon Labels,” which alone can greatly reduce clutter. To go further though you need to install themes which can be found in the Cydia store and then, once they’re installed (the same as you’d install any jailbroken app) you enable them via Winterboard.

I’ve been fairly unoriginal with my themes, choosing two of the most popular out there, but they look so damn good and, once again, will satisfy most folks reading this article. The themes are Suave and Matte Graphite and each serves a different purpose.

Suave is the dominant theme, changing the look of the home screen, icons etc – pretty much everything that’s instantly noticeable. Adding Matte Graphite to the mix creates subtle design changes to interface elements in most apps, giving them a tad more polish. To install these open the Cydia store, search for their names, hit the Install button, and then enable them in Winterboard. Too easy.

Under the “Sections” tab within the Cydia store you can find hundreds of themes, including complete changes to the look of your phone, but also for specific elements such as the look of SMS bubbles. Try mixing and matching to achieve your desired result (it’s probably a good idea to actually have a desired result in mind).

And one last theme you may want to check out, which I haven’t personally used but caught my attention nevertheless is iElemental, a monochrome theme that holds tightly to minimalist ideals.

How To Customize Application Icons

Now we’re getting into the obsessive compulsive stage of iPhone minimalism, but it’s simple enough to do so I figured, why not?

When you install a new theme on your phone there’s one often-obvious flaw with the overall look of what you’ve created: not all the icons for your applications are consistent. Popular themes like the ones mentioned before are pretty good at accommodating for many of the apps (like Tweetie 2 and Facebook) but there are plenty left unattended that need some tender love and care.

I wasn’t interested in creating icons from scratch, or even opening Photoshop at all, so this is the process I took:

1. Follow the instructions in this video about how to file share via SSH.
2. Once connected, navigate to /Library/Themes/THEME_NAME.theme/Icons. When you first connect you’ll be placed in a sub-directory so you’ll need to go up to the top-level directory first.
3. Find an icon that is not already being used by an app. For example, Notes.png wasn’t being used already because I’d hidden the Notes application using Poof.
4. Duplicate and then rename this new file to that of the app you want to use this icon. For example, I duplicated Notes.png and renamed the duplicate to Simplenote.png (the name is case sensitive).
5. Power off your iPhone, and then turn it on again.

The only caveat of this method is that depending on the theme you use, there may be no relevant, unused icons for you to duplicate and rename. I was lucky with the Suave theme because I was able to use an iPod icon for the RSS Player and an alternative Notes icon for Simplenote. You can still create your own icons if need be, and the file transfer process remains the same.

…okay, and so that’s my minimalist, jailbroken iPhone. How do you make your iPhone minimalist? (Jailbroken or otherwise.)

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