New iPod

A month or so ago there was an unfortunate incident. While reaching over the bathtub to turn the water on, my beloved iPod Touch slid out of my breast pocket and into the water below. I immediately rescued it and dried it off hoping that I had acted quickly enough to spare its little electronic parts from being flooded. In my exasperation I clicked the home button (certainly sooner than I should have) to see if there was any life left. To my relief, the iPod lit up immediately and I assumed my little friend had once again been spared the damaging effects of my carelessness. Satisfied, I returned the iPod to my pocket and carried on.

Several hours later I pulled my iPod out of my pocket to check on something when to my dismay, my iPod did not turn on. Hoping it was just a dead battery, I plugged it in but there was no response. Fearing the worst, I did what I should have done in the very beginning. I found our container of rice and buried him in it. Having witnessed similar disasters with electronics and water, I knew that a nice, dry place was my best bet for restoring my iPod to it's functional state. It was not to be however, and 24 hours later there was still no pulse. Heartbroken I laid him to rest on my desk, where he would remain for the next few weeks.

With the semester coming to a close and finals just weeks away, it was NOT a good time to be without my iPod. I knew I relied on him to perform certain functions, but I didn't realize it was that much. I was quite dysfunctional; it was almost like I'd lost my right hand. EVERYTHING was on that iPod, and getting to the information I needed through other means was a pain. My lovely sister, Josie, was kind enough to let me use her laptop during those few weeks and put up with quite a bit as I hauled it to and fro, fumbling to keep my life in order. Since my birthday and Christmas were coming up soon, I made sure to drop a LOT of hints about how nice it would be to get a replacement iPod. I'm sure everyone around me was quite fed up with my whining about it, but I was serious: I needed that thing.

On the morning of my birthday I received a series of texts from my girlfriend, Hannah, wishing me a happy birthday and telling me to hurry in to work. When I finally walked in i found her beautiful, beaming face almost giddy with excitement about the present she'd got me. We promptly went to lunch and as were sitting down she handed me a card and a small package. As soon as I held it I knew what it was. Amidst my heartfelt protests to her spending so much on me she sweetly insisted that I open it immediately. And there, smiling back at me was the shiny, pristine face of a brand new iPod Touch 4G. retina display, front and back facing camera, A4 processor, bluetooth, microphone, external speakers! (Needless to say it was a MAJOR upgrade from my old 1st-generation iPod Touch.)

So now, to my utmost delight, (and with many thanks to my wonderful girlfriend,) I'll try my hand at theming iOS 4 and the retina display on my new iPod. :)

Icons

Almost a year ago I jailbroke my iPod Touch. I did so mostly because I was sick of how grossly multicolored the home screen became as one acquired more and more apps. I wanted one unified look; I wanted to be able to quickly and cleanly navigate my iPod to find what I wanted. Having had some experience making icons for my Mac using CandyBar, I assumed the icon-making process for the iPod would be similar: simple and satisfying.

After a bit of googling I found WinterBoard. WinterBoard is an app available through Cydia, (the jailbroken app store,) that is used to apply themes to your iPod. While figuring out how the whole jailbreak/themeing process worked I stumbled upon a beautiful WinterBoard theme called Bluebird designed by David Lanham. I became a big fan of Lanham's work a few years ago when found a set of Mac icons he'd done. I was looking for those Mac icons, in fact, when I discovered his iPhone theme.

That Bluebird Theme started it all. Included with the download was a PSD file that was meant to be a template for making more Bluebird-style icons. Of course, having it all layed out for me right there in a neat, photoshop package was irresistible. I learned much about Photoshop, layer styles, and icon-making in general from studying that PSD and making some icons of my own.

One day I found myself quite fascinated with the concept of a Heads-Up Display, (or HUD,) and its potential application in the world. (I think it was some time spent playing Halo 3 that got my mind on the subject.) I spent a while staring at some images and YouTube videos when I decided I wanted to try and make a heads-up-display-looking theme for my iPod.

The result was this: My "HeadsUp" iPhone/iPod touch theme. Which brings me to the original purpose of my post—to display some icons that were recently added to the repertoire: Twitterrific, BubbleFREE Air Sharing, Spore, Labyrinth 3D, Doodle Jump, and Plants vs. Zombies.The overall look has been tweaked and updated as I've gone along, creating some discrepancies in the details. Some are not even finished, (well, one I guess,) in the case of the reMovem icon. Nevertheless, I'm quite proud to finally show these to the world. I hope to soon release the entire theme after I get a few more UI Images and apps themed. (Hopefully a retina display version will be in the works as well. :D) Until then I'll be posting frequently on it's status as it progresses. Let me know what you think!

Hi

Hey.