How to customize your app icons without jailbreaking

custom app no jb

When your iOS device is jailbroken, customizing how it looks can be as easy as installing a WinterBoard theme. There’s literally thousands of them in Cydia to choose from. The options get much more limited, however, if your device is hack-free.

But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. We’ve covered a number of ways to modify a stock iOS device in the past, and we’ve got another one to show you today. Here’s how to customize your iPhone or iPad app icons, no jailbreak required…

This simple trick comes from the folks over at Tooliphone, courtesy of their iCustom web app. The tool allows you to create both custom app icons and blank spaces for your Home screen. And it’s all done using URL schemes and Safari shortcuts.

All you have to do is open mobile Safari on your iOS device and visit tooliphone.net. There you’ll be presented with two options: create an empty space, or create a custom icon. Once you’ve selected one, the app will guide you through the remaining steps.

Here’s a video of the web app in action:

Admittedly, the whole process is pretty tedious. You can only customize one icon at a time, and you have to point the web app to the URL of an icon image for each app. And since you’re really just creating shortcuts, you’re going to have a ton of duplicates.

But I guess if you’re just really against jailbreaking, or you’ve upgraded past iOS 6.1.2 and can’t at the moment, this is a way to change up the look of your iPhone or iPad. And if you have the time and patience, you can really make your device look unique.

Have you tried this out yet? Thoughts?