iPhone - Official Thread

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Yeah, I use a custom theme and happen to think it's quite a bit better than the default one.
I HATE the GIGANTIC CANDY GLOSSED icons. They anger me. The labels also bug the hell out of me, it makes the screen seem waaaayyyy too busy.

I also don't think it's really about "amateurs thinking they're better at UI design than proffessionals" It's just whatever works best for you.

http://i25.tinypic.com/2gtbyf7.jpg

Whatever has the least clutter is best for me, so I use smaller matte icons and no labels.
 
Liquid Helium said:
The problem with themes is that they (obviously) don't change most of the icons for your apps, and then you end up with it looking really inconsistent.
Click to expand...
Well it depends on the theme. Some popular ones, like matte nano and illumine posted above, have over a thousand icons already available and you can find communities where requests, for icons missing in your collection, are swiftly fulfilled. Not to mention that many themes come with app icon overlays (working with winterboard) that adjust every icon, on the fly, without a proper replacement in your set.

The problem you mentioned will only be encountered if one downloads loads of new apps often and the theme used is unpopular/poorly supported.

Gary Whitta said:
Why is the stamp on the back of the envelope?
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*burn* :lol
 
OverHeat said:
Order mine last week and got it on monday you got screwed.
Click to expand...

There's a huge thread over at RFD with people waiting as long or longer than me. Did you order a 32gb 3gs over the phone or on the website?
 
Liu Kang Baking A Pie said:
It seems like a hyperbolic fanboy statement, but really, who else is there? Stephan Hoefnagels is shaking shit up at Microsoft with the new Office and Windows 7 looks, at least.
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It's not necessarily the "best GUI designers in the world part" it's the fact that the theme is a black background with icons...it's not exactly something that one would think took a whole lot of geniuses sitting in a room for years to come up with.

I understand that the GUI is more than the main theme, but I'm assuming (never messed with them myself) that custom themes leave the other part of the GUI (navigation within native apps, etc.) in tact; so in reality, we're just discussing the looks of the app launcher part of the GUI, which again, the stock one isn't something so spectacular that it would warrant a response such as the one previously quoted.
 
DoctorWho said:
There's a huge thread over at RFD with people waiting as long or longer than me. Did you order a 32gb 3gs over the phone or on the website?
Click to expand...


By phone ordered the 3gs 32gb it was an upgrade from my 8gb 3g for 299$
 
Liquid Helium said:
The problem with themes is that they (obviously) don't change most of the icons for your apps, and then you end up with it looking really inconsistent.
Click to expand...

To be fair, it's not like the default iPhone app icons are all that consistent either.

Yeah, I use a custom theme and happen to think it's quite a bit better than the default one.
I HATE the GIGANTIC CANDY GLOSSED icons. They anger me. The labels also bug the hell out of me, it makes the screen seem waaaayyyy too busy.

I also don't think it's really about "amateurs thinking they're better at UI design than proffessionals" It's just whatever works best for you.

http://i25.tinypic.com/2gtbyf7.jpg

Whatever has the least clutter is best for me, so I use smaller matte icons and no labels.
Click to expand...

No text for less clutter is ok, but the icons look horribly tiny and unbalanced - too much negative space. Aesthetic design is NOT purely subjective. There are objective rules to design.
 
the only totally radical custom theme I have ever seen is this:


OBKyC.jpg



it was posted a few months back and then posted again in the google OS thread today.

ugly, sure, but I can't stop laughing at the sheer joyfulness of it all.
 
Tobor said:
I love that one for it's sheer bat shit lunacy, LC, but Mail bothers me. He should be holding an envelope, dammit!
Click to expand...
I think he's going for "Male", but I agree. It's not entirely obvious what he's going for with that one.
 
Tobor said:
I love that one for it's sheer bat shit lunacy, LC, but Mail bothers me. He should be holding an envelope, dammit!
Click to expand...


shit, you're right! this is worse than the stamp on the back of the envelope on that other theme! :lol

RubxQub said:
I think he's going for "Male", but I agree. It's not entirely obvious what he's going for with that one.
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then he should have his thumbs pointed toward himself, Fonze-stylin'.
 
LCfiner said:
shit, you're right! this is worse than the stamp on the back of the envelope on that other theme! :lol



then he should have his thumbs pointed toward himself, Fonze-stylin'.
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That would have done it. So close to perfection. :lol
 
itxaka said:
Anyone please?
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Most games aren't really big. Probably between 1 and 50mb, most of them under 35mb actually. Then again, music should probably take up most of your space, at least it does for me. I have an 8gb 1st gen iPod Touch and I have right now only 5Gb of music (I have lots of music I barely listen so I just un-checked them so they don't get copied on my iPod), 1Gb for apps, 1 Gb still free for more apps and the rest for videos and pics.


I'm checking some games...

Minigore - 15Mb
Inifinte Gene - 22.1Mb
Pawapuro Touch - 38.9Mb
Resident Evil 4 - 37.3Mb
Baseball Sluggers 3D - 26Mb
Flight Control - 8.7Mb
Rope'n'Fly - 0.9Mb
I dig it - 9.5Mb

etc..
 
I dunno, themeing just reminds me of people who used to hack skins into OS X back in 10.1 and 10.2. A classic scheme because OS 9 was so much kewler, for example.

I got MobileMe set up yesterday, so now I have Push email finally. But I can't figure out how to get it to reply with my primary email and not with mobileme. I'm thinking it might be my primary email. When I set the SMTP server to gmail, it sends as gmail. When I set it as my primary domain, it still shows as @me.com.

I refuse to have it say @ME.COM in my emails, so I'll just stick with gmail...not better, but at least it will also show up on my computer.
 
Jtwo said:
Yeah, I use a custom theme and happen to think it's quite a bit better than the default one.
I HATE the GIGANTIC CANDY GLOSSED icons. They anger me. The labels also bug the hell out of me, it makes the screen seem waaaayyyy too busy.

I also don't think it's really about "amateurs thinking they're better at UI design than proffessionals" It's just whatever works best for you.

http://i25.tinypic.com/2gtbyf7.jpg

Whatever has the least clutter is best for me, so I use smaller matte icons and no labels.
Click to expand...

See this theme and the Illumine theme, I can get behind.
Every other theme seems to over complicates things or there's no continuity.
 
Husker86 said:
It's not necessarily the "best GUI designers in the world part" it's the fact that the theme is a black background with icons...it's not exactly something that one would think took a whole lot of geniuses sitting in a room for years to come up with.
Click to expand...
It probably did. Simple doesn't always come easy.
 
itxaka said:
Anyone please?
Click to expand...

I don't know how big is the operating system in the iPhone, but based on my 16GB iPod Touch 2nd Gen, I have the following installed :

1,138 Songs
31 videos including 3 full length movies : WallE, Dark Knight and Nightmare Before Christmas
193 Pictures
129 Apps

And I still have 3GB left :D

So depending what are you installing in the iPhone, I will say 16GB is more than enough.
 
LCfiner said:
I do like this one. but I don't know why the word "standard" is under the weather channel icon. did the user change it himself? bug?
Click to expand...

That's not related to the theme; the TWC app added a premium version in May called "The Weather Channel Max" and now the original, free one has the word "Standard" under it.
 
Mik2121 said:
Most games aren't really big. Probably between 1 and 50mb, most of them under 35mb actually. Then again, music should probably take up most of your space, at least it does for me. I have an 8gb 1st gen iPod Touch and I have right now only 5Gb of music (I have lots of music I barely listen so I just un-checked them so they don't get copied on my iPod), 1Gb for apps, 1 Gb still free for more apps and the rest for videos and pics.


I'm checking some games...

Minigore - 15Mb
Inifinte Gene - 22.1Mb
Pawapuro Touch - 38.9Mb
Resident Evil 4 - 37.3Mb
Baseball Sluggers 3D - 26Mb
Flight Control - 8.7Mb
Rope'n'Fly - 0.9Mb
I dig it - 9.5Mb

etc..
Click to expand...

wow, thanks a lot I guess I could do with a 16gb as I don't really listen to a lot of music (and probably will be using spotify if it's released) and that seems to be the bigger space taker.


I don't know how big is the operating system in the iPhone, but based on my 16GB iPod Touch 2nd Gen, I have the following installed :

1,138 Songs
31 videos including 3 full length movies : WallE, Dark Knight and Nightmare Before Christmas
193 Pictures
129 Apps

And I still have 3GB left

So depending what are you installing in the iPhone, I will say 16GB is more than enough.
Click to expand...


Same, thanks!

I definitely will go with the 16gb, by the time I fill the 4g will be coming out already :lol
 
Duane Cunningham said:
That's not related to the theme; the TWC app added a premium version in May called "The Weather Channel Max" and now the original, free one has the word "Standard" under it.
Click to expand...


smh. so dumb.

thanks for the insight, tho.
 
Charred Greyface said:
:lol ok all you theme haters need to calm the fuck down.

Not everything Apple touches turns to gold. The default dock is distinctively disturbing.

Not everybody who makes a theme is an amateur. Some are [obviously] professional designers themselves.



this one of the best themes I ever seen to date!
Click to expand...
 
That is stupid. But what I think is even more stupid are apps that have the name in the icon and then it writes it underneath again.
 
Custom themes are either so close to the official theme that they defeat the purpose or so ugly they need to be wiped from the Earth.

I've never seen one worth Jailbreaking, and I doubt I ever will.
 
Tobor said:
Custom themes are either so close to the official theme that they defeat the purpose or so ugly they need to be wiped from the Earth.

I've never seen one worth Jailbreaking, and I doubt I ever will.
Click to expand...
Simply removing the gray bar for the icons on the bottom row makes all the difference to me. I hate that. Makes the space seem smaller.

I also changed the weather icon to be dynamic and update every hour. (but it doesn't give me badge alerts like one shown previously.
Weather changes constantly here and I like looking at my phone and checking the temp on the status bar.

My standard screen.

I also use the 5 icon dock with settings added to it, but removed it for the pic as to avoid upsetting most of you.

20qdwyp.jpg
 
itxaka said:
wow, thanks a lot I guess I could do with a 16gb as I don't really listen to a lot of music (and probably will be using spotify if it's released) and that seems to be the bigger space taker.





Same, thanks!

I definitely will go with the 16gb, by the time I fill the 4g will be coming out already :lol
Click to expand...

The only probably you might face is if you are into the adventure games like Myst or Monkey Island which take up a nice chunk of space.
 
dallow_bg said:
Simply removing the gray bar for the icons on the bottom row makes all the difference to me. I hate that. Makes the space seem smaller.

I also changed the weather icon to be dynamic and update every hour. (but it doesn't give me badge alerts like one shown previously.
Weather changes constantly here and I like looking at my phone and checking the temp on the status bar.

My standard screen.

I also use the 5 icon dock with settings added to it, but removed it for the pic as to avoid upsetting most of you.

http://i30.tinypic.com/20qdwyp.jpg[/IMG]
Click to expand...

If you like it, that's awesome, but it does nothing for me. I still see nothing worth messing around with jailbreaking, for me personally. The phone does what I need it to do a daily basis, effectively, and I like the way the interface works.

I don't run any icon swaps or themes on my Macbook either, so I guess I'm plain vanilla man.
 
Tobor said:
If you like it, that's awesome, but it does nothing for me. I still see nothing worth messing around with jailbreaking, for me personally. The phone does what I need it to do a daily basis, effectively, and I like the way the interface works.

I don't run any icon swaps or themes on my Macbook either, so I guess I'm plain vanilla man.
Click to expand...
The only appealing jailbreak feature that I've heard anyone mention is the removal of the 10MB over 3G cap.

Something like a $2 program that makes the iPhone always think it's using WiFi when in reality it's using 3G.

Other than that, I'm not compelled to do it.
 
RubxQub said:
The only appealing jailbreak feature that I've heard anyone mention is the removal of the 10MB over 3G cap.

Something like a $2 program that makes the iPhone always think it's using WiFi when in reality it's using 3G.

Other than that, I'm not compelled to do it.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I don't use the jailbreak for much.

1. 10mb limit removal.
2. Scrobble my music live.
3. Ever so slightly tweak the interface. (remove gray dock, remove slide indicator on lock screen)
4. (rare) Use Skype over 3G

And that's pretty much it.
I used to play SCUMM games but eh, don't really use my phone for games.
 
Nazgul_Hunter said:
I love my theme

IMG_0363.png


+ I also love Tris, the best version of Tetris on the iPhone (sadly, got pulled because of EA)
Click to expand...
<3 Tris! I go it right before it was pulled. Saddens me that the global high scoreboard doesn't work. What's your high score? Mine's 173,372.
 
Can anyone advise on swapping SIM cards if I upgrade my 2G to a 3G? Once upgraded, can I just pop that SIM back into the 2G and have it work?

I have reason to do this, FYI.
 
Husker86 said:
It's not necessarily the "best GUI designers in the world part" it's the fact that the theme is a black background with icons...it's not exactly something that one would think took a whole lot of geniuses sitting in a room for years to come up with.
Click to expand...
The point being that Apple's designers understand that simplicity works best. All these custom themes do is obfuscate things with distracting backgrounds and icons that are trying to be too clever for the sake of it. It's placing the designer's own self-indulgence ahead of what actually works for the user. Apple's designers understand that when it comes to GUI design and appearance, less if often more. Most amateurs don't get this basic concept, and that's painfully evidenced in so many of the eyeball-fucking homebrew themes you see.
 
twofold said:
I'm using this theme at the moment -

2qwpyz6.jpg


It's not perfect, but I like it.
Click to expand...
This one is poor. Why is the App Store logo a radio dial? How are the Photos, YouTube and Phone icons in any way related to their function? They're just generic images of nothing. Why is the Safari icon just an image of the OSX Leopard wallpaper?

Fail.
 
Gary Whitta said:
The point being that Apple's designers understand that simplicity works best. All these custom themes do is obfuscate things with distracting backgrounds and icons that are trying to be too clever for the sake of it. It's placing the designer's own self-indulgence ahead of what actually works for the user. Apple's designers understand that when it comes to GUI design and appearance, less if often more. Most amateurs don't get this basic concept, and that's painfully evidenced in so many of the eyeball-fucking homebrew themes you see.
Click to expand...
Wheeeee!
gameboy-iphone.jpg


I don't use it but I <3 the Gameboy theme. (fullscreen version on right that is)

EDIT: And as shit as 99% of these themes are, it's people's own phones to use as they wish.
What is confusing to you is second nature to them. They know where their icons are, and how to use it.
 
Gary Whitta said:
The point being that Apple's designers understand that simplicity works best. All these custom themes do is obfuscate things with distracting backgrounds and icons that are trying to be too clever for the sake of it. It's placing the designer's own self-indulgence ahead of what actually works for the user. Apple's designers understand that when it comes to GUI design and appearance, less if often more. Most amateurs don't get this basic concept, and that's painfully evidenced in so many of the eyeball-fucking homebrew themes you see.
Click to expand...

Yup.

But it's also Apple's image. The clickwheel was both intuitive (although I didn't like it), and iconic. A circle essentially became the symbol for an iPod.

With few controls on the iPhone, it's clear to me Apple intended the touch screen to BE that icon. Just look how recognisable a black rectangle with a few coloured squares is as an iPhone. Genius. And it has every other company stumbling to replicate that.
 
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