We’ve covered the themes in Cydia once before when we were feeling uncharitable. Too many people on Cydia forget that just because you can make a theme doesn’t mean you should. A lot, and we mean a lot of themes for jailbroken devices look utterly atrocious. There is a lot of crap on that store.
Thankfully, there’s also a lot of good stuff buried between the bikini babe wallpapers. We went through Cydia and picked out five themes that are worth downloading. These themes show originality, creativity or simply feel unique enough to merit mentioning. Most are for Dreamboard, although Winterboard isn’t forgotten. Here are our picks.
Jaku
We’ve discussed Jaku once before when we spoke to the creator. It’s a meticulously crafted theme made especially for Retina displays. The creator displays a remarkable care and attention to detail trying to improve on iOS without completely redoing Apple’s wheel.
Developer William Szilveszter said he wanted to make a theme that’s “absolutely perfect.” He spent more than a year poring over each and every icon in iOS to perfect it for Retina displays.
The results are certainly impressive. Jaku looks good on Retina displays.
Jaku is well worth the money for the richness and obsessive perfectionism it brings to Retina iOS devices. We’d recommend spending the money and buying it.
Aero 2 iPad Dreamboard
Aero 2 iPad advertises itself as bringing Windows to Apple’s tablet. Obviously, this is not possible in the literal sense outside of using VNC, and that’s cheating.
Instead, Aero 2 iPad adds a complex layer of themes atop iOS and build a close recreation of Windows 7. Everything’s here from the taskbar to the start menu to the libraries.
The theme supports open windows which organize your apps. Navigation here could be better, as it’s hard to tap tiny library icons.
There’s some weirdness with the oddly cartoony icons, but by and large this feels like Windows. It certainly isn’t, but it is enough to fool the non-tech savvy.
Boxor HD
Boxor HD redesigns the layout of the SpringBoard. It changes everything into a series of large widgets for the stock apps, Facebook, the calendar, and a list of favorites.
The layout looks cool. It feels like Android with its widgets and glut of information. The large icons on the right side are scrollable as well. The total app drawer is accessible at the top.
Boxor HD’s only problem is that it’s not especially rotation-friendly. Rotating the desktop requires pressing a specific button. Landscape mode is clearly unoptimized and fuzzy.
Other than that, Boxor HD deserves points for creativity.
HoneyPad
HoneyPad is a decent execution of a good concent. It redoes the SpringBoard to look more like an Android tablet running HoneyComb.
3.x was not known for its especially great design, but HoneyPad replicates it faithfully. If nothing else, the new look is nice.
We salute the theme for its customizability. You can rearrange the app rows and widgets however you’d like.
Other than some issues with crashing, we’d recommend trying HoneyPad.
MountainLionOS
MountainLionOS was the coolest theme we tried. It recreates OS X 10.7 Mountain Lion on iOS. The iPad’s larger screen almost makes it look real.
Many of the OS X features are here. A swipe left reveals the notification center. A swipe right shows off the Mountain Lion widgets. The widgets work, although the notification center doesn’t.
Support for other features is similarly mixed. Mission Control is broken, but Launchpad works as a basic app drawer.
Let it also be noted that this completes the cycle of inspiration. OS X inspired iOS which inspired Launchpad which inspired this theme on iOS. Think about that.
Honorable Mention of Worst Theme: Metro U iPad
We have no idea if Metro U iPad looks good or bad or like anything, really. It deserves a special tip of the hat for completely crashing our iPad and locking into a bootloop.
Absolutely do not download this theme. If you do, use iFunBox to enter this SSH command:
killall -SEGV SpringBoard
That’ll get you into safe mode.
Final thoughts
Overall, Cydia has some talented graphic designers. As long as you don’t mind paying a few dollars, there’s no reason why your iOS device can’t get a new look.
