Well I thought this was going to be big news. And, it’s a start… If you remember Customize you know what I’m talking about. But for those of you who don’t, here’s a little info. Customize lets you change all kinds of things on your iPhone or iPod Touch: sounds, system strings (like the Slide to Unlock text), icons, wallpaper, etc. There’s also a huge theme database within the app. It’s all very nice but tonight, it’s just not working for us. Very buggy, crashing our iPhones, not keeping changes, etc. We’ll keep testing it and watching for updates but I’d wait on this one for now.

Their site is also back up and running where you can upload your own themes from your computer that will show up in the list right on the app. Here’s a quote from the front page of their site:

Customize 2.2.1 (compatible with iPhone 2.2.1 firmware) is now available. You can download it here: http://customizeapp.com/uploads/release/Customize-2.2.1.zip.

It will also become available through Cydia Installer soon.

Best, Spicy

Check out some of our past articles on Customize.

Thanks to Ed for tipping us off to this!

Now that Customize is available via Cydia, I deleted the Customize.app file I had installed via SSH and installed it through Cydia (which I recommend doing so that you will see all the updates for the app). Before I manually deleted Customize, I reset my iPhone back to stock. When I installed Customize through Cydia and then opened the application, I did get a pop-up saying that it was unable to reach the Customize servers. However, their entire website is down so that is just a temporary error until their servers are back up. Besides that, Customize worked great. The app opened the first time I opened it and I was able to change my dock, system strings, battery…etc with no problem. Once spicychicken’s servers are back up…you will be good to go! Time to start customizing!

Note: You will not be able to use the Theme Browser until their servers are back up.

I finally had a chance to sit down and take a look at the new Customize for firmware 2.0. At this time, it is still not available via Cydia and the only way to get it on your iPhone or iPod Touch is to SSH it in Customize is now available via Cydia. When I SSH’d Customize onto my iPhone, I had to go in and change the permissions of all the folders/files inside the Customize.app folder to 0755. Before I change the permissions the app just opened and closed (I tried to open it quite a few times before I changed the permissions).

So, once I changed the permissions, I was able to open Customize. From there I downloaded a few files and some themes. However, I could not get anything to actually work. If I went into Customize Images/Sounds and tried to set anything (Dock, Battery, Badge, Bars, Edge….) I would get an error saying, “Copy Result Encountered an error copying the files.” Also, if I tried to change something like the System Strings (which doesn’t require a download) I would get an error that said, “Save Result Failed to save strings file.” After some research on the Customize Forum I found that SpicyChicken suggested running this code:

chmod +s /Applications/Customize.app/Customize_

I ran the code, resprang my SpringBoard and went back into Customize. This time everything worked! I was able to change the dock, edge and wifi bars, the badge, application icons, system strings…etc. So, run that command and you should be fine. The actual application itself has not changed, it looks and functions the same as in the previous version. I am soooooo happy to have the ability to customize my 2.0 iPhone! I’m very excited! Now I just have to remember everything that I had changed before.

You can get Customize 2.1.1 HERE.

Update: Customize is now available via Cydia!

    • Incorporated an AutoUpdate utility – I have already used this feature of Customize and it did indeed notify me that there was an update. You can then update right in the application. However, when I updated through Customize, it did not show up in my Installer as an updated version.

    • Added ability to contact the Creator via Mail.app – This is a great feature. In the Theme Broswer, when you are in the more info screen for an item, you can tap on Creator and it will open an email with that person’s email address so that you can contact them directly.

    • Added About page to display what’s new, what’s coming, and what’s broken. – The About page is the Installer More Info screen, it is not an actual About page in the application.

    • Added Comments section to each theme/file set in Customize. – This is also a cool new feature. You can now comment on any of the items in the Theme Browser.

Version 2.0.0RC1 of Customize also added a new feature called Freeboard. However, please read the following posts before enabling Freeboard.

Customize with Freeboard
Customize with Freeboard Update

Freeboard is considered a SummerBoard replacement giving you the options to turn on/off Freeboard itself, Show Wallpaper, Hide Icon Labels and Five Icon Dock.

Version 2.0.0RC1.2 & Version 2.0.0RC1.3 of Customize do not have any visual changes, I am assuming they are bug fixes.

via BigBoss.

Customize has released an update that has a SummerBoard replacement built in called “FreeBoard”. If you enable this feature, it will disable SummerBoard. At this point, you probably do *not* want to do this. And enabling FreeBoard could cause your phone to stop booting.

The iPhone has about an 80 app limit. This includes webclips. Once you hit this limit, your phone won’t boot. It just spins and reboots over and over again. SummerBoard patches this bug (bug by Apple, fix by SummerBoard). If you enable FreeBoard feature within Customize, you will lose SummerBoard’s fix. If you have more than 80 apps, you will not be able to boot.

If you are already in this situation and need to fix the problem without restoring, you can do so by using SSH/SCP or something like iPhoneBrowser to remove folders in /Applications until the phone boots. Then you can reinstall the apps you had to delete. Don’t remove anything critical. Easiest fix is to use winscp or such and make a temp folder called “Temp” in /Applications. Then just drag enough folders from /Applications into /Applications/Temp until the count is around 75. Then reboot the phone, disable freeboard, make sure SummerBoard is enabled, and move all the folders from /Applications/Temp back to just /Applications.

You can still use the SummerBoard feature in Customize with no problem…SummerBoard must be installed in order to do so.

1. Download the modified version of Customize by Skylar – download here

2. Extract the zip file and copy the Customize folder into your Applications folder on your iPhone via SSH

3. Then run the following commands via terminal (change the folder structure if you’ve using BossTool):

/bin/chmod -R 755 /Applications/Customize.app
/bin/chmod +s /Applications/Customize.app/Customize

4. Restart iPhone.

Remember you will need to open Customize a few time before it will work properly.