Filed under: Hacks, How-tos, iPhone
TUAW Hack: Mess with your iPhone Settings screens
A little while back, I posted about some undocumented SpringBoard settings on the iPhone. Many readers seemed to enjoy learning about these settings, but they wanted to avoid performing the esoteric property list edits needed to adjust them.
In response, I give you the following: controls that actually show up in your Settings application and allow direct manipulation. Here's what you need to do. You will need secure shell access to your iPhone's command line (ssh).
- Start by backing up your /Applications/ Preferences.app/ Settings-iPhone.plist file. Make sure you copy the file to a safe place so you can recover it if needed.
- Replace that file with http://pastie.textmate.org/124408. Copy the entire property list from the field at the bottom of the screen and paste it into a new text file. Rename that file to Settings-iPhone.plist and place it in /Applications/Preferences.app.
- Run settings, and voila! I divided the settings into two groups. The first group works instantly and you can immediately see their results. For the second group, you must restart SpringBoard (my restart utility may help) for the settings to take effect.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
jadam said 2:25PM on 12-18-2007
Thank you for putting the TUAW Hack: preface in the title. It makes it more clear that this is not some cool new feature in the iPhone itself but rather a hack.
Might I suggest that all the iPhone hacks from now on have this same preface? That seems like a fair solution, since the iPhone-hack-haters will know to skip the article right away. (FWIW I have an iPhone and haven't jailbroken it myself, but I like reading the hacking articles.)
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zightx said 2:29PM on 12-18-2007
Really great adddon!
But it would be good if the settings is placed under a new folder so it don't take up so much space in the settings panel because you don't use these functions every day.
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blacter said 2:43PM on 12-18-2007
Hi Erica. Kind of unrelated to this post, but I bet there are many readers like me who would appreciate your take on whether the latest version of the iPhone will be unlocked. Have the dev team and others come up against a brick wall, or is it just a matter of time before we'll be able to unlock iPhones withe the latest bootloader?
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MrHack said 3:40PM on 12-18-2007
Just tried this, followed all the steps and my Settings crashes now anytime I open it. Revert back to default file and its working again.. No workie...
On 1.1.2 iPhone Unlocked with Tmobile
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dfarrudajr said 8:06PM on 12-18-2007
I tried to modify Settings-iPhone.plist and now my Settings crashes whenever I try to open it. I replaced Preferences.app with the original Preferences.app I had backed up before the modifications but my Settings still keeps crashing, even after I restart the phone. Can anyone help me?
ERock said 8:05AM on 12-19-2007
The same thing happened to me but my WiFi was disabled, so I couldn't SFTP the backed up file to my phone. I created an installer package to replace the file and fix the problem. I wonder what I did wrong the first time.
dfarrudajr said 8:57AM on 12-19-2007
ERock, is your Settings ok now? Which file did you replace to fix the problem? As I said, I replaced the whole Preferences.app with the original version and even though Settings still crashes on my iPhone! Any suggestions?
dfarrudajr said 11:04AM on 12-19-2007
I just set Preferences.app permission to 755 and it works fine now, thanks!
Blair said 3:48PM on 12-18-2007
I'm confused about the new dock setting. All the pics I've seen show a glossy black reflective dock... and in fact that is what I see when I set it. However, as soon as I start an app, it changes to a reflective stippled metal texture. Any way to just keep it black?
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Mathies said 3:53PM on 12-18-2007
As zigthx writes. It would be great if this somehow could get it's own category. Something like specials or something.
Otherwise a great little hack. We all love you!!
;)
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Chris said 4:51PM on 12-18-2007
thanks, love the new dock. Now I can finally get rid of summerboard, which seems to slow down my iPhone :)
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Kakcoo said 5:55PM on 12-18-2007
Is it possible to make the AutoSnap utility appear in either preferences.app or itoggle.app? That would be smooth as ice.
tnxbye
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Jim Danner said 6:23PM on 12-18-2007
Great! This helped me get the "Album shuffle" setting (shuffle entire albums instead of individual songs) on the iPhone, which is one of the things I most missed in the music player.
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Josh said 11:43AM on 12-19-2007
Can you explain how these additional settings gave you that option? I don't see anything about music preferences here... definitely not in the Settings app.
On my iPod touch, for what it's worth, I see "Shuffle" at the top of every album I select. Is that not on the iPhone?
Jim Danner said 3:24PM on 12-19-2007
The standard shuffle function shuffles individual songs (as if you pick up a pile of CD singles and shuffle them like cards). What I wanted (and am used to with the iPod nano) was shuffle by album, as if you pick up a pile of albums and shuffle them: each album gets played from the first to the last track, but the next album is randomly picked. I googled "album shuffle iphone" but only found many complaints about the missing function on forums -- no solutions.
It turned out there is a hidden preference, "MusicPreferedShuffleOnSetting", that enables album shuffle. The hack described in the article makes it possible to set that preference from the Settings menu.
I described different things I tried in a thread on the hackint0sh forum, http://hackint0sh.org/forum/showthread.php?t=18867
Mr.ArfArf said 8:11PM on 12-18-2007
What does "Cloaking" do?
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Blair said 9:10PM on 12-18-2007
Double-tap an icon to hide/unhide it.
Josh said 11:48AM on 12-19-2007
But it only works with YouTube, iTunes, and Safari. I suppose Cloaking lets you double-tap each one individually, whereas "App Reveal" toggles the visibility of any hidden apps?
Errant double-tapping would get annoying, and the fact that it only works with three basic apps is weird.
That said, I think using Customize would be smarter. Tap the eyeball icon and it's really hidden!
Queco Jones said 9:27PM on 12-18-2007
Any chance this will work on an iPod touch or should I not even bother? Any chance of you turning this into a utility that one could add to the device via Installer.app (maybe have it create a backup, do the modification and, offer an undo)?
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Nick Wood said 9:36PM on 12-18-2007
Uh... this isn't working on my iPod touch. Is it supposed to? If not, could you write a new .plist specifically for the iPod touch?
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