Tag Archives: customization

What Is Cydia Substrate For Android & How To Install Winterboard On It

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The Cydia store has always been there for the rescue of many iOS users when their Android-wielding friends start mocking the iPhone for its lack of customization options. Admittedly, even a host of tweaks and themes cannot match the level of modification a custom ROM or root-level tweaks and mods for Android can offer, but having a collection of such root-level tweaks that can be applied to the device without having to flash files from recovery does have its advantages. So, some might find it bit absurd that Saurik has released Cydia Substrate and Winterboard in the Google Play Store, it can potentially take Android customization to a whole new level! In what follows, we'll take a more detailed look at Cydia Substrate, and show you how to install it on your Android device, and get Winterboard (or any other extensions, as they become available) up and running afterwards. Read More

How To Add Transparent Icons To iOS Home Screen Without Jailbreak

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Earlier, we discussed how it was possible to use custom icons for any app on iOS without jailbreaking. Well, in the words of Steve Jobs, there’s one more thing: adding blank, nearly transparent app icons to your iOS device home screen without jailbreaking. In case you're wondering why would anyone want to do this, there are design enthusiasts out there who want to be able to customize the way their devices look, and since iOS doesn't offer much customization options for the Springboard, one way to tweak things your way would be to use a custom wallpaper designed with to work with transparent icons on top of it to add the visual effect you want. Check out how you can go about pulling off this apparent wizardry after the jump. Read More

How To Change iOS App Icons Without Jailbreak [Guide]

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Apple's mobile operating system isn't exactly known or praised for offering users a lot of control. In fact it is notorious for being a walled garden, with Apple pretty much enforcing upon users what it thinks is right, and not giving them many options to tweak it to make it suit their individual needs best. Without jailbreak, iOS offers significantly limited customization when compared to Android; you can’t replace the keyboard, switch to a different launcher, customize app icons… or can you? Yes, we've come across a method that allows you to change the appearance of your app icons without fondling saurik’s beard! Check it out after the jump. Read More

DeskScapes 8 Brings Wallpaper Effects, Animated & Video Backgrounds To Windows 8

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It seems Stardock is paying very close attention to Windows 8. After creating some wonderful apps like Decor8 and ModernMix and selling thousands of Start8 copies, the company has also updated its DeskScapes utility for Microsoft's latest OS. DeskScapes 8 is not only a nice addition to Stardocks' fascinating line of customization tools, but it’s also one of the most powerful wallpaper personalization app for Windows 8. The application puts various enticing desktop backgrounds at your disposal, letting you apply static, panoramic as well as Windows Vista’s Dreamscene-like animated wallpapers to your desktop. Keep reading! Read More

Change Size & Position Of Windows 8 Start Screen With ImmersiveTaille

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Windows 8 has entered its fifth triumphant month since general availability, and a lot of developers have already built an umpteen number of Start Screen tools to let you customize this latest Windows feature to your heart’s content. One such example is ImmersiveTaille that lets you customize the Start Screen in a few different ways. This portable application is basically designed to change the size of the Start Screen, and move it to to user-defined positions on the screen i.e. top, bottom, left or right. Its works in pretty much similar fashion to our previously covered Start Screen Modifier from WinAero. For instance, it enables you to specify a custom Start Screen resolution, or display it along with the Taskbar when in Full screen. More details after the jump! Read More

Add Custom Extensions To DashClock Lock Screen Widget For Android

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Recently, we wrote about DashClock Widget - the brainchild of leading Google team member Roman Nurik - and the widget has already proved to be one of the most impressive and widely acknowledged Android app releases of the year. DashClock Widget basically looks to exploit true potential of Android lockscreen widgets announced in Android 4.2 Jelly Bean by presenting users with a plethora of information and notifications pertaining to various apps on the very same screen, which would otherwise mostly be accessed only by unlocking the device and navigating to the relevant apps. The widget’s own dedicated extensions aside, it’s the extensible nature of DashClock Widget that has done it a world of good. Almost every other day, a brand new third-party extension for the widget hits the Play Store, introducing us to yet another one of the countless possibilities offered by this simple little widget. Dashclock Custom Extension by Dominik Gross is one of the most interesting extensions we've seen for the widget so far. It lets you add a few customizable extensions to the widget that you can personalize according to your needs, complete with various user-defined actions. Read More

Customize Date & Time Displayed On Windows 8 & RT Lock Screen

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If you frequently change the Lock Screen background on Windows 8 or RT, you'll probably love spending time customizing it further as well. Lock Screen is a new feature in Microsoft’s latest OS that shows off your favorite image when your Windows 8 PC or Windows RT tablet screen is locked. The Lock Screen does more than just displaying the wallpaper though, and is home to some miniscule widgets like Wi-Fi signal, battery, email notifications and a clock with date display, in addition to time. Windows doesn’t offer a way to customize the clock widget however, leaving you stuck with the stock date and time format. Thanks to Vishal at AskVG, you can now customize the clock widget’s time and date format and language by modifying a registry key. Read More

Customize Rows & Columns Of Firefox Speed Dial Grid With Newtab

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Speed Dial is a popular browser feature introduced in Opera and later adopted by Chrome that was a little late in coming to Firefox. The feature debuted in Firefox 13 but was soon plagued with security problems that took considerable time for Mozilla to patch up. While the feature was still absent in Firefox, many add-ons were developed to compensate for its lack, and many developers have strived to improve it since its comception, getting creative with what they can do with it. Newtab: Rows & Columns is a Firefox add-on that lets you customize the number of rows and columns on the speed dial pad in the new tab page. The extension allows you to add as many speed dial buttons to the page as you like, but instead of letting you simply customize their number, it allows you to customize the dimensions of the speed dial grid. Read More

Android Tweaker Is A Great Modding Alternative To Pimp My ROM [Review]

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A while back, we reviewed Pimp My ROM that offered Android users possibly the largest collection of various system performance enhancement tweaks, hacks and mods bundled into a single package. Ranging from Kernel-based tweaks to internet & network-based mods, the tool allows both intermediate and advanced users to tinker with a lot of settings of their rooted Android devices. New to the scene, Android Tweaker by XDA-Developers senior member iGio90 is a similar tool that could prove to be a tough competitor to Pimp My ROM and other Android tweaking solutions currently available in the market. As with Pimp My ROM, Android Tweaker is equipped with loads of tweaks allowing you to play around with various performance-related settings of your Android device. Needless to say, the app is meant to work with rooted Android devices only. A good thing about Android Tweaker is that it is fully compatible with almost all Android devices, versions, kernels and ROMs (both stock & custom). Let’s explore this handy utility in detail after the break. Read More

Give Your Windows RT Desktop A Facelift With Rainmeter

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Windows RT has been around for a few months now, with Microsoft's own Windows Surface being the primary device this tablet-friendly OS has been running on so far. Recently, when XDA member clrokr successfully jailbroke Windows RT, it resulted in opening up doors of possibilities for the homebrew community to run ported x86 desktop apps on ARM architecture. By now, a multitude of app have already been ported to the platform by various users, and one of the awesome additions to the ported apps library is Rainmeter. For those who don't know about it yet, it's a fascinating desktop customization utility that allows you to give your desktop a complete makeover. In what follows, we will guide you through the process of changing that boring desktop look and spicing it up with Rainmeter’s plethora of gorgeous skin packs. Read More

Create Your Own Stunning Android Live Wallpapers With Ditalix

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Live Wallpapers have been a distinctive feature of Android since the very early days of the OS. Over the years, we have seen some visually attractive and amazingly functional Android Live Wallpapers arrive in the Play Store, with most of them supporting extensive personalization. Today, we're bringing you yet another highly customizable Android live wallpaper app in the form of Ditalix by Fahrbot – the creators of several nifty Android apps including SwitchMe, CallMaster and Undelete. Sporting a plethora of customizable glow styles, designs, themes, pixelated effects, animations, palettes, interactions and layout settings, Ditalix is your very own custom Android LWP generator. Using all the aforementioned tools, a custom background image of your choice and personalized settings, you can design sparkling live wallpapers that respond to your taps and touches in the form of various glowing animations. Read More

Give Your Windows 8 Desktop A Makeover With Rainmeter & RocketDock

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I've always wanted to customize my Windows 7 desktop using Rainmeter to add some interesting look and feel to it, and RocketDock to get rid of the taskbar. But it has never been possible to totally neglect the taskbar, only due to the start menu, which held so many applications in place. In short, I gave up on the idea of customizing my desktop. But since Windows 8 has replaced the Start menu with the Start Screen, I can continue with the customization, and you too can learn how it's done! Read More

LabelEnhancer Is A One-Stop-Shop For Customizing iPhone App Labels

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Sometimes the smallest of things can make all the difference. With everyone trying to customize their iPhone these days, it is not necessary that you apply a whole new theme to your iDevice to make it stand out, even a relatively small tweak like LabelEnhancer can do the trick. The functionality offered by LabelEnhancer might appear to be a bit insignificant in some people’s eyes, but you can’t deny the fact that the tweak is really unique. Using LabelEnhancer, you can change everything about the labels of apps on your jailbroken iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. The tweak offers options to change the font, color, size and shadow style of app labels. The choice of colors available in LabelEnhancer is unlimited, as you can use predefined colors or define your own RGB values. Read More

Smart Settings: Ultra-Customizable Automated Profile Switching On Android

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When discussing some of the most reputed Android app developers, you can ill-afford to overlook Root Uninstaller – the creators of some very fine apps, such as Root Uninstaller, Smart RAM Booster, 1Tap Quick Bar and quite a few other handy tools. Each time these guys release an app to the Google Play Store, users know that they’re in for an effective and impressive solution to their routine Android-specific issues. Same is the case with the team’s latest release, Smart Settings, that can, at best, be deemed as a powerful combo of hyper-extensive Android sound and system profile customization and event-triggered profile management. This fully Holo-themed and free app is aimed at users who’re either discontent with the rather constrained and disorganized stock profile settings, or are looking for convenient and automated means to switch between the required profiles on their Android. Not only Smart Settings consolidates your system’s network, display, sound and sync settings under one hood, but also lets you extensively personalize each, and switch between the required ones with a tap. In addition, it can also automatically switch between various user-defined profiles as per the specified rules for battery level, WiFi status and/or custom time intervals. Read More

1Tap Quick Bar Brings Extensive Personalization To Your Android’s Notification Panel

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The team behind a couple of hugely successful Android apps, Root Uninstaller and Smart RAM Booster, are back in business, and the app on offer this time around is arguably the most comprehensive notification widget personalization solution that we have come across so far. Surpassing the versatility and level of customization of most (if not all) of its counterparts, 1Tap Quick Bar tries to enhance your multitasking experience on Android manifold. It does so by empowering you with the option to pin customizable bar/widget(s) to your Android’s notification panel, so that you may quickly launch required apps and trigger system toggles, music playback controls, quick launch actions, contact interactions and/or virtually any aspect of your Android that you wish to have at your fingertips. It lets you stack up to as many as six different apps, tasks, system settings and/or required controls on a fully customizable notification panel widget. In just a few taps, you can define multiple custom widgets, complete with an outlook of your choice, and activate only the required ones. The extent of personalization ranges from specifying a custom widget background and text visibility settings to choosing from various icon sets and text color for the widget content. Read More

Hive Locker: Custom Android Lock Screen Replacement With Online Theme Library & Quick Access Controls

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Fresh to the Google Play Store, Hive Locker is a free, custom Android lockscreen replacement app with polished looks, an online theme and wallpaper library, and plenty of user-friendly features that help make your Android device’s lock screen productive as well as visually appealing. The app lets you explore and download various catchy lockscreen themes from its online repository and embellish your device’s lockscreen with a custom background image. It also supports its own neatly-built notification center that can display notifications pertaining to the total number of unread text messages, as well as the message content. The app also comes with its own built-in pattern unlock to help you secure your beloved Android. Moreover, it can be set to show/hide the status bar on the lockscreen, play various audio tones upon unlocking the device, and last, but not the least, brings several quick access controls that can be used to unlock straight to your favorite caller, messaging and camera app, toggle the flashlight On/Off, or circle between various sound profiles. Read More

Recast: Hyper-Customizable Android Weather App With Multiple-Sized Widgets

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Weather apps for mobile devices are mostly known for adding plenty of flair to your screens, while at the same time, depicting all sorts of up-to-date weather-related information. Google Play Store alone sports dozens of eye-catching and immensely informative weather apps for Android devices, but when it comes to customizing the looks and feel of a mobile weather app to the very core, not even my personal favorite, 1Weather by OneLouder Apps, comes close to matching the comprehensiveness of Recast, an offering of XDA member mstroud. Currently in beta, Recast is a beautifully-designed and fully-customizable weather app that sports a sleek full-screen interface, as well as multiple customizable/skinnable homescreen widgets that come in as many as six different sizes. Read More

VolumeCustomize: Personalize The Volume HUD’s Color & Transparency On iPhone [Cydia]

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Cydia store is all about customization, and no matter which part of iOS you are talking about, the jailbreak store is sure to offer something related to it. There are a lot of themes and cosmetic tweaks in the Cydia store, but there are some areas of an iPhone that are just taken for granted, and people never think about changing their appearance. One such item is the volume HUD in iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. The translucent square is a seemingly unchangeable aspect of iOS, but a new Cydia tweak attempts to modify all that. VolumeCustomize lets you change the color and opacity of the volume HUD, and not only that; you can even choose a custom image to use as the background for the volume indicator! Read More

The Best Free Android Launchers For Home Screen Replacement

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What makes Android different from many of its competitors is the degree of customization it offers its users, which goes to the extent of even letting users choose what is essentially the primary user interface of any operating system – the home screen Launcher! With Android, you can choose from a plethora of available launchers offering a diverse user experience range, and it’s just as simple as installing the launcher like any other app. In what follows, we will take you on a feature tour of some of the best Android launchers available, to help you choose the one that’s right for you. Read More

SBUtility: All-in-one Cydia Tweak For Customizing iOS Home Screen, Icons, Folders & Lock Screen

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In the past, we have covered a lot of Cydia tweaks (and apps) that allow users to make a number of cosmetic changes to their iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. When it comes to tweaks, most of them focus on altering one or two aspects of iOS at a time. You will be hard-pressed to find a Cydia tweak that can be used for the customization of various iOS aspects, unless you are talking about something like WinterBoard. That’s what makes SBUtility stand out among the rest of the Cydia crowd. This tweak allows its users to change almost everything regarding the looks of their iOS device, all in one place. The tweak offers options to customize app icons, folders, Springboard, dock and lockscreen. We are not talking about one option for each of these categories, either; SBUtility offers detailed customization possibilities for all these areas of iOS. Head past the break to know more about this awesome tweak. Read More