There’s still no way to jailbreak the iPhone 5, or other post-A5 devices running iOS 6, and that makes a lot of people sad, us included. But the lack of a jailbreak hasn’t totally stifled the flow of creativity, as it’s given rise to a bunch of popular “no jailbreak required” hacks and tweaks.
The latest such example is CarrierEditor — an app that runs on OS X that allows you to easily change your iPhone or cellular enabled iPad’s carrier logo without being jailbroken.
There are, of course, plenty of ways to alter the carrier logon on a jailbroken device, but if you’re like many who have the iPhone 5, or a non-jailbroken iPhone 4S, then CarrierEditor is a great workaround until a jailbreak finally touches down. Take a look inside as we step through the complete process of altering the carrier logo on an iPhone 5…
Step 1: Download and mount the CarrierEditor.dmg file.
Step 2: Run CarrierEditor.app, and click Let’s Get Started.
Step 3: On your iPhone open Settings > General > About and find the Carrier field, notating the Carrier Version Number for your device. Type that version number into the Carrier Version Number field on the “Need Some Quick Info” page on CarrierEditor and click Next.
Step 4: On the Carrier Information page, you will see two drop down boxes. On the first drop down box labeled Device, ensure that the proper device is selected. Note, if you’re doing this for an iPad, it must be a cellular enabled iPad. This doesn’t work for WiFi only iPads, or the iPod touch. In the Carrier drop down box, select the name of your carrier, and click Next.
Step 5: On the Customization page, you will see two small boxes. The top box is for black carrier logos, and the bottom box is for etched logos. You will need to drag and drop both logo types for your custom carrier logo into these respective boxes. CarrierEditor comes bundled with ten different Zeppelin carrier logos. Open the ZeppelinLogos folder from the mounted image, and select the folder that contains the carrier logo you want to use. Drag each type of logo (black & etched) into its respective box on CarrierEditor, and click Compile Carrier Update (.ipcc).
Step 6: Once the logo is compiled, CarrierEditor will save both the original and the custom logo to your desktop.
Step 7: Open iTunes, and ensure your device is connected to your computer. Once on the summary page for your device, press and hold the option key on your keyboard, and click Restore iPhone (or Restore iPad). A Finder box should open up. Navigate to your desktop where the logo was saved, and select your custom .ipcc carrier file (not the one labeled original) and click open. You should see your carrier logo change on your device. If you don’t see the change reboot your device.
Step 8: If you want to revert back to the original carrier logo, repeat step 7, but this time select the .ipcc file labeled original, and then reboot your device if no change occurs. I always had to reboot my device with the second carrier change, so you most likely will have to as well.
It may seem like a long process, but that’s because I pretty much spelled out everything, even obvious stuff, verbatim. If you watch the video above, you will see how easy and simple the process really is.
Special thanks to developers Kevin Ko, and Daniel for putting together such an easy to use and easy to follow app. Be sure to check out Kevin’s blog for more details on CarrierEditor, and other projects he’s working on.
Even while in the midst of a significant jailbreak drought as we are now, this is a great way to customize your iPhone or iPad. What do you think? Have you customized the carrier logo on a non jailbroken device yet?