Change Home Screen to Today?

[hanky]

One thing I dislike about my iPhone is that if I press the action button I get a picture of the lock and battery life. I'd rather have my daily calendar appear instead of a big picture of a battery. Is this possible to change? I find it a bit infuriating that Apple thinks its idea of perfection is the only way and finding difficulty locating any extensions that might allow this if Apple disagrees with my thinking! Give me hope people!!!

Other wants:
- battery saver application (turn off wifi after X minutes of nonuse, etc.)
- spam filter (apparently this omission is going on over 2 years... insane)
- replacement keyboard (I go crazy every time I just need a comma or period... it blows... is there nobody else who can install a user programmable software keyboard alternative?)
- some kind of wired file synchronization
- browsing for files in applications - are all of them crippled where you can only view documents transferred to the device by that application? I can only view PDFs in teh application I uploaded the PDF?

[Jimmy97]

Welcome to Apple.
Nothing is user-programmable. It's all set for your pleasure.

[eaglesteve]

You need to jailbreak your phone and install intelliscreen. That trasnform your lock screen into one what shows you informaiton such as calendar item, SMS messages, emails, missed calls, weather, news feed, etc. The layout is up to you to customize.
http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa37/eaglesteve/9425f14f.jpg
http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa37/eaglesteve/cc344150.jpg



There are many alternate keyboard layout in the Cydia store which required winterboard to go with it. By the way, you can quick double tap to get fullstop. To get comma quickly, slide from the number lock key towards the comma and let go.

To view all your iPhone files on the device itself, I use iFile, another Cydia application. It lets you copy, paste, delete, rename files, in addition to viewing and playing them. From PC, my preferred way to view the files structure on the device and to manage them is to use DiskAid, a paid application with free trial period. To be able to see the all the files and not just the media file, your phone must be jailbroken.

Hope this helps.

[ReyZero]

3 hours to water the lawn? :P
That's the only reason I want to jailbreak, for background based things, but it still doesn't interest me yet
I'm waiting for someone to install the new Adobe Mobile Flash :P

[Jimmy97]

Apple really needs to add Intelliscreen-like capabilities (widgets) with 4.0. And give us a new menu system for crying out loud (the ability to keep the background with just the dock and swipe up for the actual menu in which you CAN have folders..) And multitasking & Flash while they're at it. Not to mention a good notification system in which everything shows up in the status bar instead of popping up in my face. And just click on the icon (in the status bar) you want to go to that application with the new notification. Is it really so hard?
Oh and, there are plenty of applications in the AppStore for viewing files and PDFs and the like, and a lot have great interfaces. AirSharing is the one I use, in addition to Quickoffice for creating Word/Excel files on the go.

[Purplemonky]

Noooooobody uses backgrounder apps! Theres no point and thats why apple dont add them. Coz ppl dont want or hardly use em enuff and they would kill the crappy usless apple battery even faster! I do agree they should change the look of the menus, keyboards and back grounds though. 3 years with the same crappy greyish blue background is kinda lazy on apples part -.-'

[Jimmy97]

Um, am I color blind? Or is the background black?
And everyone uses multitasking. A quick look around the net would tell you that. If no one uses background apps, why bother allowing more than one application to run on a PC at the same time?
And you should really take the time to write well, I had to read your lovely grammar twice to understand. It wouldn't kill you.

[Purplemonky]

Um, i was actualy refering to the backgrounds in the menus!! as it goes softlad! And id say a pc is oh so slightely different to a mobile phone. lmao at you though, the 1 geek who has to be the 1 to b!tch about grammar. Did it make you feel like a big man? Do you feel cooler or smarter now? Aww bless ya lil cotton socks trying to start somthing over the web :) and fyi the ppl who want backgrounding will hardly ever use it as its only a gimmik to the majority mate but i suppose if you actualy "had a quick look around the net would tell you that" <<<< knob.

[ReyZero]

I only want a single background application queue so when I answer a phone call or check a text message it doesn't close out.
At least the games are nice enough to save your spot so I'm not crying
I enjoy using my iPod in the background, now I wish I could use Pandora, but again I'm not going to throw my iPhone away because of it.

[Purplemonky]

Thats my point reyzero mate, you hit the nail right on the head there! The vast majority of reasons for backgrounding ive come across is for using pandora and other internet stations. Other than the pics above there isnt really cause for backgrounding as far as i can see. Plus the already weak battery will just dissapear a whole lot faster like apple have been saying all along.

[hanky]

Thanks guys. You've confirmed the unfortunate. I think Apple has a big choice to make and they are stupid to foolishly lock out developers so that they could suck every penny out of you. Come December, unless there is a new iPhone, there is going to be some serious, heavy competition. There used to be a company called GM...

1) Lack of spam filtering is infuriating. Not being able to do anything... contemptible.

2) The one click Intelliscreen is a mind numbing necessity. I just read that Apple is trying to waste time patenting the today screen and suck even more cash out of consumer. I can't Jailbreak the device because I bought AppleCare at a discount. Maybe I should cancel but I thought that sticking it to Apple to replace my battery for 2 additional years would be a good way of sticking them with nice, large expenses and I'd have a functional device with a battery that lasts at least an hour.

3) Wireless sync doesn't help me. I'm trying to just sync with a wire. I'm beyond frustrated seeing that Apple has also decided I don't need that either. Has anyone there spent time in London or New York? There are these vehicles that move people under the ground without signal.

4) Battery... sigh. Is it just me or does everyone else think their 3GS is going to die by supper time? I also wish I could turn off mail from checking the mailbox EVERY time I want to go back to look through my 100 messages per mailbox. Nice way to kill the battery even more thanks to some idiots decision in Cupertino to force me to check every account.

I appreciate explaining the need to Jailbreak the device but apparently that gives Apple the excuse not to honor my warranty. Honestly, I'm developing a contempt for Apple's gall. It's why I've never bought an Apple device in the past 10 years and probably never will again after the iPhone unless someone else is back at the helm.

How do you guys manage? I REALLY *want* to like the device but it's like everywhere I turn there is apple with the gun, demanding my credit card or telling me I don't need the bare essentials I've had for years elsewhere. I'm about half way into my 30 day return period and, even with spending all that money for great little apps, it's getting challenging... I need these things!!! :D

[ReyZero]

I'm awaiting my NVIDIA Tegra APX, which will gave insane battery life due to the 1-watt processor. I switched off Verizon to try an iPhone and AT&T sucks so much that after my contract is up I'm leaving. I do enjoy the iPhone, but all the missing elements because Apple has a finger up their bum is quite annoying. Plus, why doesn't AT&T have MMS yet? They got the warning 6 months ago when this was announced. Why am I paying $200+ a month when I can't get 50% of my phone calls

[eaglesteve]

Noooooobody uses backgrounder apps! Theres no point and thats why apple dont add them. Coz ppl dont want or hardly use em enuff and they would kill the crappy usless apple battery even faster! I do agree they should change the look of the menus, keyboards and back grounds though. 3 years with the same crappy greyish blue background is kinda lazy on apples part -.-'

Sorry I have to disagree with you. Backgrounder is extremely high on my priority list. I want to open my eWallet, read the first few character of a code, go to a website, toggle back to eWallet, read the next few characters, go back to the website, enter it, come back to eWallet to get the last few characters, to enter the rest. I do not want to sign in to eWallet and navigate to that page each time I want to switch. I want to take a phone call while using Golf Score Card program, and when the call finish, resume from where I stop instead of going through many pages of navigation to come back to the resume recording result for the hole we're playing. Worst still, I do not want to call to terminate my program causing the results to be lost. I want to keep my VOIP program running so that I can receive call when someone call my VOIP number. I want to let my MSN chat session continue although I'm on to using other application.....

In my own experience, there is'nt much difference to the battery life. Even if it has, the right thing for Apple to do is to make the battery replaceable so that we can swap in a spare battery when necessary, rather than omitting what any modern OS must be able to do - multitasking.

If TRUE multitasking is implemented, we should be able to continue speaking on the phone with the phone in the background, and navigation software in the foreground, so that we do not miss that critical turn while the phone call is going on.

[eaglesteve]

Thanks guys. You've confirmed the unfortunate. I think Apple has a big choice to make and they are stupid to foolishly lock out developers so that they could suck every penny out of you. Come December, unless there is a new iPhone, there is going to be some serious, heavy competition. There used to be a company called GM...

1) Lack of spam filtering is infuriating. Not being able to do anything... contemptible.

2) The one click Intelliscreen is a mind numbing necessity. I just read that Apple is trying to waste time patenting the today screen and suck even more cash out of consumer. I can't Jailbreak the device because I bought AppleCare at a discount. Maybe I should cancel but I thought that sticking it to Apple to replace my battery for 2 additional years would be a good way of sticking them with nice, large expenses and I'd have a functional device with a battery that lasts at least an hour.

3) Wireless sync doesn't help me. I'm trying to just sync with a wire. I'm beyond frustrated seeing that Apple has also decided I don't need that either. Has anyone there spent time in London or New York? There are these vehicles that move people under the ground without signal.

4) Battery... sigh. Is it just me or does everyone else think their 3GS is going to die by supper time? I also wish I could turn off mail from checking the mailbox EVERY time I want to go back to look through my 100 messages per mailbox. Nice way to kill the battery even more thanks to some idiots decision in Cupertino to force me to check every account.

I appreciate explaining the need to Jailbreak the device but apparently that gives Apple the excuse not to honor my warranty. Honestly, I'm developing a contempt for Apple's gall. It's why I've never bought an Apple device in the past 10 years and probably never will again after the iPhone unless someone else is back at the helm.

How do you guys manage? I REALLY *want* to like the device but it's like everywhere I turn there is apple with the gun, demanding my credit card or telling me I don't need the bare essentials I've had for years elsewhere. I'm about half way into my 30 day return period and, even with spending all that money for great little apps, it's getting challenging... I need these things!!! :D


Hanky,

Why do you think apple will dishonor the warranty when you jailbreak? Just remember you can always restore to non-JB state before the appointment with Apple staff. It's a very simple action.

[paul100]

Eaglesteve, thank you for sharing your knowledge about Cydia store with us. So that people will start to add more use things to dsplay in the locked screens, rather than seeing a big battery. Is Cydia a paid service

[eaglesteve]

Eaglesteve, thank you for sharing your knowledge about Cydia store with us. So that people will start to add more use things to dsplay in the locked screens, rather than seeing a big battery. Is Cydia a paid service

Some applications in Cydia are commercial software. Most are free, but you're welcome to donate.

Cydia is automatically installed as an icon just like App Store once you jailbreak.