Icons

Mistake on Apple’s website shows different iOS 7 app icons

This is kind of interesting. New versions of some of the stock app icons in iOS 7 have been spotted on Apple's website. The reason for the changes is not yet known, but the app icons have received the blunt of the criticism thus far regarding Apple's new mobile OS.

Some of the new icons are starkly different than the ones seen in the first developer beta of iOS 7, while others appear to only feature subtle differences. And it's not clear if this was a mistake on Apple's part, or these will be the new app icons in iOS going forward...

New in iOS 7: Clock app icon now displays real time

As we continue to dig through all of the new features and UI changes in iOS 7, we've come across a minor, yet interesting, detail. It looks like the Clock app icon now displays the correct time, and has an animated second hand.

At least, in all of Apple's screen shots it shows the correct time. Notice in the image above how the time on the Clock icon matches up with the time in the status bar. But I can't for the life of me get it to work on my iPhone 4S...

iOS 7 icons and other details leak ahead of Apple’s WWDC keynote

Spoiler alert! For folks who don't want to ruin the surprises Apple has in store for us tomorrow, I recommend you stop reading now. The folks over at 9to5Mac say they've just been given a sneak peek at an early beta of iOS 7, and have described it in detail.

Contrary to a report from earlier today, it sounds like most of what we've heard about the next version of iOS is spot on. The entire UI has been completely redesigned with flat icons and other elements, and a new, Helvetica Nueue Ultra Light-like font...

What some iOS 7 stock app icons might look like

Much has been said about Apple's management shakeup that happened last October. If Scott Forstall's departure came out as a bombshell, the fact that Jony Ive, Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, was made the head of the newly created Human Interface group was less of surprise.

Now in charge of everything design, Ive has been expected to give iOS a facelift by getting rid of, or at least by minimizing all use of skeuomorphism in Apple's mobile operating system. But it doesn't stop here!

Something we've been hearing for a while when talking about Ive's possible take on an iOS makeover is the word "flat". Not flat as in boring. Flat as in simpler. This was confirmed last week when 9to5Mac reported that according to their sources, iOS 7 might be black, white, and flat all over.

What does that mean for parts of the UI such as app icons? Our friend Sonny Dickson got his hands on a blurry screenshot showing the Home screen of an iPhone running iOS 7. The image quality is terrible, but with the help of talented designer Surenix, we were able to reproduce some of these icons to give you an exclusive look at what some stock app icons on iOS 7 might look like.

If we had to describe the changes in one word, that would be: unified...

Initiate Activator functions using icon taps with App Activate

On its own, Activator is probably one of the most useful jailbreak tweaks available. It allows you to map practically any button or touch gesture to an iOS action. But what makes it really cool is that devs can create their own tweaks to extend its capabilities.

And that's the case with this next package, by developer rjharris. It's call App Activate, and it enables you to initiate any of Activator's actions by double tapping an app icon . So for instance, you could set it so that double tapping the Music icon starts playing music...

How to customize your app icons without jailbreaking

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...

Customize the look of your Home screen icons with Athena

Folks who enjoy customizing their iOS devices, but hate overweight theming apps like WinterBoard, might want to check out Athena. The new jailbreak tweak, developed by SuperDev, allows you to completely change the look of your Home screen icons.

Want dark icons? No problem. Want pink icons? No problem. Athena has a wide array of settings that enable you to change nearly everything about the color attributes of your app icons, providing you with seemingly endless customization options...

‘Fade’ dims your Home screen icons when invoking Notification Center

Fade is an extremely simple jailbreak tweak that forces the Home screen UI elements to fade when Notification Center is invoked. As you slide down Notification Center, elements like the app icons and the dock will progressively fade from view. As you slide the Notification Center pane up, the effect is reversed, and the elements fade back into view.

There are no options to setup or settings to configure, just install it and it starts working. Take a look inside as we demonstrate Fade on video...

New images try to prove that Samsung copied Apple’s icons

As we begin week two of the high-profile patent trial between Apple and Samsung, we're starting to see a lot more evidence submitted by both companies. And this next bit, filed by Apple, is particularly interesting.

In court today, Apple's legal team presented 6 images to the jury that it believes proves that Samsung intentionally copied its iOS icons for use in its TouchWiz interface it installs in all of its popular Android handsets...

iOS 6 lets you easily tell new apps apart

In case you weren't sure what apps have been newly downloaded on your iDevice, iOS 6 is making this clearer than ever as it now displays a little blue "New" label in the corner of the app icon.

I'm not sure it's going to be one of those life changing new features but I like how it makes it clear that you have downloaded an app and haven't launched it yet...

How to Fix White or Missing Icons on Your Jailbroken iPhone?

Ever since I jailbroke my iPhone 4S using Absinthe, it has been behaving a little weird, sometimes displaying white icons or even transparent icons for certain applications. It seems that this issue only affects Apple's stock applications such as the Phone app, Calendar, etc.

I can't really pinpoint the issue. Is it because of Absinthe? Or is it because of a package I have installed from Cydia? While I'm not really sure what causes this problem, I have found a simple trick to fix the blank or missing icon dilemma...