Personalise Your iPhone

If, like me, you like to personalise your iPhones look but are not bothered or interested in Jailbreaking, heres a nice and easy to use app called CarrierEditor, that allows you to change the carrier logo.

Its available from as a free download and allows Mac users of Mac OS X 10.7 or greater on any iOS without a jailbreak, but limited to devices that support a carrier, to simply update their iPhones carrier file by generating a modified version of a carrier update. In this version Meteor, Three, 02 and Vodafone are the only Irish networks supported but there is an Unlocked Carrier option that may work for other network users that are using unlocked handsets?

This modified version is saved to your Desktop along with a copy of the original carrier file, be sure to save this original file somewhere safe, it will be called YourNetwork_original.ipcc handy if you want to restore the original carrier file!

Once generated, you just use iTunes to install it. Simples!!

When downloaded, just open the .dmg file.This opens the CarrierEditor app, click the “Lets Get Started” button and follow the simple step by step process.

1st important point – make sure to restart the iPhone after installing the update with iTunes! Don’t be tempted to just switch “Airplane Mode” on/off.

2nd important point – if you use the “Do Not Disturb” feature in Notifications your carrier logo will change back to the original logo until this feature turns off.

Carrier Editor app comes with an included ‘Zeppelin’ pack of logos but if you want to create your own personalised carrier logo here are some simple to follow instructions (I hope)

Step 1– Choose and save an image with a high resolution, looks better when you reduce the size later on.

(if you want to have text as your carrier logo just create your own, I use http://pixlr.com/editor/ choose create a new image-preset size 800×600. Use a bold font (looks better on the iPhone status bar) and depending on how many letters you want to use,I find 9-10 max fit between signal bars and cellular signal! Save as a.jpg image file.

Step 2 – Open the image file using Preview.

Now to make the background transparent, Choose Edit-Instant Aplha and click on image background

then Edit-Clear. A warning box will ask you to convert the image to PNG, click  Convert

Next go to File-Export and save the image as .png.

Step 3 – Using the crop tool, crop the image.

Step 4 – Choose Tools-Adjust size The height needs to be ’40’, when you enter this in the height section this will change the width size accordingly. Then “File” “Save”.

We now have a .png image that will look great for most screens on the iPhone but some screens need an image that is Etched and with a Drop Shadow, namely the Notifications screen.

Step 5 – To add this Drop Shadow I use GIMP (available for free here- http://www.gimp.org) Open the saved PNG image in GIMP, choose Filters-Light & Shadow-Drop Shadow. set X as 0, Y as 2, Blur Radius as 2 and untick the “allow resizing” box.

Step 6 – Chose File-Export and name the file differently to the original image file! As my example original was called itn.png I’ll name this 2nd image itnETCHED.png

You should now have 2 .png image files as sometimes the text of the status bar on the iPhone is etched!

Now when using the Carrier Editor app, you should drag the 1st image into the “Black/White (FSO_Carrier)” box and the 2nd image (Etched) into the “Etched (TS_Carrier)

After restarting your iPhone you should now have something like this!

I would recommend tweaking text size and colour until you are happy with the results but be assured you can change your carrier logo as many times as you want!!

Happy PNG’ing !!

Michael