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About & FAQ
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Hello, and THANK YOU for your interest for iSkin ! \o/
First of all, please note that you will find some usefull « contextual help » items everywhere on this website by activating the « ? » icons.
Then, I hope you will find here some usefull informations & answers to questions you're perhaps asking :
Who I am...
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I'm 43, I'm french, I have a full-time job, a wonderfull wife, two adorable children (11 and 9 years-old) and 2 cats !
I'm also a web developper, I love iOS but I'm annoyed by many of its customization limitations if you're not jailbroken...
I like making things I want becomes possible thanks to web development, and I like helping other people to achieve the same goal by using my work.
That's why I make websites & webapps as a hobby during my free time.
That's why I first made iEmpty to make blank icons and put iOS icons anywhere on the iOS home screen.
That's why I made iCustom to make your own custom icons and modify the default iOS application icons on the iOS home screen.
And that's why I'm making iSkin to create & install iOS themes, and make the iOS customization process even easier for anybody !
Contact
What is iSkin ?
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iSkin is an hosting platform for « non-jailbreak iOS themes ».
With iSkin, as a theme designer, you will be able to create and upload themes (lockscreens, homescreens, application icons) and convert them into a non-jailbreak compatible version that everybody can install on its iOS device without jailbreak.
> So iSkin is a nice oppurtunity for you to reach many more people with some "light non-jailbreak" versions of your themes, and make your "full jailbroken" themes known to sell them more... SEE WHY !
With iSkin, as anybody, you will be able to install iOS themes created by iSkin themers with a few actions (just select the apps you want to install on your homescreen and customize their labels) : WITHOUT JAILBREAK !
> There are limitations compared to the jailbroken themes, but iSkin is a great alternative for you to bring iOS theming on your non jailbroken device...
Who can use iSkin ?
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EVERYBODY can use iSkin ! But depending on your goals, you will use it differently...
If you are an iOS theme creator, you should register to iSkin to be able to upload your themes in the theme editor tool, transform them automatically into a jailbreak-free version and broadcast them widely to reach more people than only the jailbreak community with your great themes !
If you are just an iOS user looking for themes to install, and have no design skills for creating nice iOS themes, please don't register, and just enjoy the nice non-jailbreak iOS themes made by the iSkin themers community !
How-to use iSkin ?
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You can watch these video tutorials to learn more about how to use iSkin depending on your needs :
Install a theme
Create a theme
What are the limitations ?
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You must know that iSkin have some limitations compared to "real full jailbroken" themes, because of the non-jailbreak usage :
- icons added on the home screen are in fact shortcuts to the "real" app (you need to keep it),
- you will not have notifications on the app icons anymore,
- application icons cannot use transparency (transformed into black by iOS), so you can't really make circular icons or icons with transparency (but it will looks good with a black background wallpaper)...,
- you can't create homescreen/lockscreen widgets,
- not all iOS apps are available for theming (currently more than 500, help me to make this number grow!),
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Common questions & problems
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Your app doesn't launch?
If one of the theme icons you add on your home screen doesn't launch the app as expected :
- Check that the selected application is installed on your device
- Check if the app is in the beta state (these apps were added by the user's community and may not have been correctly tested)
Please also note that some apps can only work correctly when providing additional informations (they can't just be "opened" without it), for example :
- Phone & Facetime apps needs a phone number to call
- Messages works but you can also configure it with a recipient and a message text
- Mail works but you can also configure it with some recipients, a subject and a message text
To correctly configure these apps (and more), please use iCustom instead of iSkin. you will configure yourself any app available in iSkin providing your own custom icon, and you'll be able to provide additionnal options (like a phone number) for the apps that needs it.
To finish, some apps are still present for « legacy » purpose. This means that they used to work with an older iOS version, but perhaps they don't work anymore with your iOS version...
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Remove an icon
To remove a single icon, simply long tap the icon on your homescreen and tap the little cross on its top-right corner, like for any other iOS app on your homescreen.
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Uninstall a theme
To completely and safely remove a theme from your device, and remove at once all its icons on your homescreen, just delete its configuration profile from the Settings app > General > profiles
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Safari usage
You MUST use Safari mobile browser to use iSkin and have the ability to add theme icons on your home screen.
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Javascript usage
You MUST activate Javascript technology on Safari to use iSkin and generate the theme icons correctly.
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Configuration profile
iSkin adds the selected theme icons to your homescreen using the iOS configuration profiles mechanisms. You must accept its installation to get your icons on your homescreen.
This is safe as these profiles are signed and only contains informations about how to add a "webclip" (a shortcut) on your homescreen.
Why upload your themes on iSkin ? [For creators]
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So if you are an iOS theme designer, you probably already provide or sell your themes on Cydia or whatever, and you're asking why you should upload your themes on the iSkin platform... Well, there are many good reasons :
1. Give your themes more visibility
iSkin allows everybody to easily install themes on their non-jailbroken devices, without any specific knowledge.
> You should have a larger audience than only the jailbreak community and so make your work known and used by many more people... > iSkin works with all iOS devices, and all iOS versions, including latest that doesn't have a jailbreak yet... This is a unique opportunity for you !2. Non-jailbreak limitations
Because the non-jailbreak usage, iSkin has some limitations... For you, these limitations are "good news", because this means that your iSkin theme will be a "restricted" version of your original jailbreak theme. If iSkin users like your theme but want more, they can next jailbreak their device and use/buy the "jailbroken full version" of your theme !
This is a nice opportunity for you to "advertise" for your themes to a larger audience and find more customers to buy your jailbroken themes.
> For that, I provide you a way to put an external link to your jailbroken full theme on your iSkin theme page.3. Handy user interface to upload your theme
iSkin provides you a nice user interface to upload you theme images (lockscreens, homescreens and application icons) in a few minutes, and automatically convert them into a non-jailbreak compatible theme.
> You don't need to worry about all the technical stuff behind : watch the theme creation video tutorial.4. Keep full control of your themes
Of course, every theme you upload on iSkin remains your exclusive own property : iSkin is just an hosting platform to provide widely these non-jailbreak versions of your themes.
You can at any moment modify, disable or completely remove your themes : You're the boss ! ;-p
> This also means of course that you need to have the entire property of the uploaded themes (don't upload themes from someone else or with copyright issues, or you will be responsible of any legal request).
So now I hope you think that register to iSkin is a good opportunity for you to reach more people with your great iOS themes !
How does iSkin works ? [For geeks!]
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Webclips
To propose iOS « theming » without jailbreak, iSkin installs on the user home screen some « webclips » that are in fact shortcut icons made for launching favourite web pages.
The trick is to make webclips that doesn't launch a web URL (like "http://example.tld"), but something else called a « custom scheme URL » (like "example://").
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Custom scheme URLs
Indeed, any iOS application can be launched using such a custom scheme URL, if it allows this.
> For example, Facebook app can be launched using "fb://" scheme, whereas Twitter uses the "twitter://" scheme.The problem is that not all iOS apps (including native Apple apps) provides such schemes URL to interact with them.
> In that case, it is unfortunately impossible to launch such an iOS application with a custom icon without using a jailbreak solution...I've listed here all the iOS applications that I've found and tested successfully to be launched using a custom scheme URL.
> Many apps are missing in the list, so if you know some more, please don't hesitate to submit a request to add it in the list. -
Configuration profiles
So now you understand that in fact theme designers, when they make a theme on iSkin, associate their theme icons with custom scheme URLs launched through webclips...
To install such a webclip on the user homescreen, you must generally visit a web page from Safari mobile web browser, choose the "share" icon and then "Add to home screen".
> This means that to install EACH theme icon, user should have to visit a special web page and add it to its home screen... that is a VERY heavy process, not really user-friendly... That is what I used for my previous webapp iCustom.To make the process easier, it is also possible to use « iOS configuration profiles ».
These are XML files allowing to broadcast to a large number of devices the same configuration/settings informations. They were made by Apple for business enterprises (Learn more).
The good news is that it is also allows to configure some webclips to add on the user device downloading this configuration profile file... You get it ?!?
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Conclusion
To conclude, iSkin allows theme creators to easily associate their icons with applications to launch through a custom URL scheme using a webclip.
Configurations profiles are dynamically generated at user request with the selected theme icons with the provided user label...Cool, isn't it ?!?
Yeah, that's cool, but you need to know that there are also some limitations compared to a jailbreak solution...
