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.
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Reader Comments (Page 2 of 2)
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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AIkaIi said 1:06AM on 12-19-2007
It does 2 work on the iTouch you just have to rename the text file Settings-iPod.plist even though the iTouch has Settings-iPhone.plist it is useless just like the bluetooth framework on the touch
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starkruzr said 5:40AM on 12-19-2007
This is great stuff, Erica. Keep it up!
I daresay it should be part of the default Installer.app install.
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Josh said 11:43AM on 12-19-2007
When I adopted this hack for my iPod touch (replacing Settings-iPod.plist instead) it did some funky things.
First, it introduced items that will have no effect on this hardware, like the GSMRSSI indicator. (That was to be expected; I suppose we could just omit the sections for each aspect we want to remove.)
It also removed the "Music," "Video," and "Contacts" lines that I usually see on the iPod touch's Settings page. That's not good.
But it did add "Wallpaper" (which is already accessible under "General") as well as "Usage" -- which looks like it reports time of battery use since last full charge. That looks to me like an interesting addition, and probably the only one I'm interested in keeping around.
So... how to edit this hack for the iPod touch? Any pointers?
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Josh said 2:42PM on 12-19-2007
I just pasted the relevant section (for "UsageController") after the section about "AirPortSettings"
...in a new Settings-iPod.plist file, and lo and behold, added the "Usage" line to my iPod touch. I am now "fully charging" my iPod to see if usage times appear. That'd be cool! :)
I'd share the full formatting here but TUAW's commenting software messes withe the display.
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Alex said 8:09AM on 12-20-2007
I followed every step and settings now crashes every time I open it, even after rebooting my iPhone, putting the original .plist back, and rebooting my iPhone again...
Does anyone have a solution? I'd like to get my settings back
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blikum said 7:55PM on 12-20-2007
O.K. I did this but it didn't work. My settings just keep crashing. How can I get back into the phone to replace with the original without knowing the ip address?? Help!
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greezer said 2:58PM on 12-21-2007
Allright, I got it working on my iPhone and upped for you my (edited) Settings-File:
http://www.greezer.ch/Settings-iPhone.plist
(right click, save as..)
USE IT AT YOUR OWN RISK! ;)
greetings from Switzerland
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Skylar Cantu said 5:05PM on 12-22-2007
I've created an iPod specific version of this file that you can download here:
http://www.touchrepo.com/Tweaks/NewPreferences.zip
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Gert Sanders said 6:23AM on 12-26-2007
hi Erica,
here is a setting I added to my Settings-iPod.plist file. It turns out the Touch has the necessary code to keep track of the run and standby times. It does not show the cell phone use (duh !), but I find it good to keep track of how much use I get from my Touch.
http://pastie.textmate.org/132179
Not sure if this was published anywhere, but there quite some items you can customize on the Settings panel. Great fun to play with them !
have fun
Gert
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Chronic Productions said 3:21PM on 1-07-2008
To clarify for those that do not know what some options are:
Cloaking - Removes anything on the status bar that is on the left side (Signal, Carrier, etc.)
Battery Level - When turned on, you can tap the upper right hand corner battery icon and see how much percent battery life you have left
PS: If you don't believe me see here (http://flickr.com/photos/chronicproductions/sets/72157603488442611/) for my credibility (Look at the date). I was the one who initially discovered how to do this, then it was stolen and put up on an installer source once I told some people in #iphone-dev how to do it. Needless to say, I was not credited.
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