The number of iPhone apps on the App Store is well over 23,000 and increasing by the hour. If you're like me who installs lots of applications on your iPhone, you might soon hit the 9 Home screens limit (some have probably already hit it).
That's 148 iPhone apps (16*9 = 144 iPhone app icons on the home screen + 4 iPhone app icons on the dock).
If you are looking for a hack to install more iPhone applications then I have good news for you. If you have a jailbroken iPhone, you'll be able to install more applications on your iPhone thanks to three iPhone hacks from the hacking community.
There are three easy hacks that will allow you install more iPhone applications on your jailbroken iPhone:
FiveIrows
The first hack adds an additional row to your iPhone's home screen. This can be done by installing the jailbreak app aptly called FiveIrows. FiveIrows is a hack that can be installed from Cydia (via Touch-Mania source).
After installing FiveIrows, you'll see an extra empty row on your iPhone's home screen. You can move or install more iPhone applications to fill that empty row.
You can checkout the screenshot below to get an idea (slightly cramped but isn't too bad):
Five Column SpringBoard (FCSB):
FCSB allows you to add an extra column of iPhone app icons on the home screen. This five column springboard hack is still in development and not yet available for download directly via Cydia. If you'd like to install this hack, you'll have to install it manually.
To install Five Column Springboard, follow these steps (however with caution as its still under development):
- Install MobileSubstrate, Ruby, MobileTerminal and Erica Utilities. All these packages can be found on Cydia.
- Once you've installed all the above packages. Download fcsb-054.deb.
- Transfer "fcsb-054.deb" to iPhone using SSH and put it under "/private/var/mobile".
- Launch MobileTerminal application and type "su root"
- Then type "alpine" for password. Followed by typing "dpkg -i fcsb-054.deb"
- Reboot your iPhone.
- Once it's rebooted, you'll see an extra row of iPhone application icons. To uninstall the hack, you can remove it using Cydia.
The screenshot below will give you an idea:
Five Icon Dock:
To push the number of iPhone applications to the limit, the final tweak is to add an extra icon for the dock. Five Icon Dock, developed by the developer of Cydia, allows you to add one more frequently-used iPhone app to the dock. Simply download and install "Five Icon Dock" application via Cydia.
After installing it, you will be able to drag an additional iPhone app icon to the dock as seen in the screenshot below:
Combine the iPhone hacks to increase the limit of iPhone apps from 148 to 230:
As you can see from the screenshot below, you can combine all the three hacks to increase the number of iPhone applications that can be installed on your iPhone from 148 to 230 (25*9 = 225 iPhone app icons on the home screen + 5 iPhone app icons on the dock). Cool, right?
I prefer to have the most frequently used iPhone apps on the first home screen and use the quick launcher app QuickGold to launch iPhone apps on other home screens, so increasing the number of iPhone apps from 20 to 30 iPhone apps (especially the ability to fit an additional iPhone app in the dock) was very useful.
Update:
Readers have also suggested that you could use jailbreak app Categories which allows you to organize iPhone apps in appropriate folders thus allowing you to install as many apps as you want (Thanks Michael and willdta).
What do you think about these hacks? Which one do you like most? As always, please leave us a comment.
Do you think that the 'Catagories' application can help you in this kind of situation ?
Hey Michael,
Yup, the Categories app can definitely help but quite a few readers have
ended up facing issues with it:
http://www.iphonehacks.com/2008/10/categories-app.html
But I agree its a good app to organize the apps on your iPhone. Though you
need to be careful prior to upgrading to the latest firmware.
Or you can get the categories, and have as many apps as it takes to fill up your memory!
Yup, Michael also suggested Categories app, so I have updated the post with
your suggestions.
Thanks!
While its definitely a neat idea, adding an extra row either horizontally or vertically (and especially to both) just makes the springboard look cluttered and ugly to me. I think Apple made the right decision to go with 4×5 rather than 5×6 or whatever.
categories rocks!
did 2 of the 3 didnt want to risk it doing that other hack, I will wait till its more stable before I go that route, will check out categories if its as good as everyone thinks I will check it out
Cool, Categories app is pretty good, but you should remember to remove the
apps from the folders before upgrading to the latest firmware.
Many iPhone users who have used Categories app have run into issues after
upgrading their iPhone to the latest firmware.
i had problem with it when i upgraded to latest firmware lol but gotta say using Categories is much better than this!!!
alternatively, can't you just hide a bunch of apps with SBSettings, and then just use a launcher like 'Dock' or whatever?
They are some very nice hacks. It's always great to be able to add more apps to your phone.
At this point, Catagories is very stable. The only "issue" that it has is that when you update firmware or remove catagories, all the apps in the folders dont magically show up on your spring board. They can easily be restored using "poof", or if you have your settings menu fully unlocked, under the springboard menu, just toggle hide icons off and they will all be back. I have 300+ apps installed on my iphone, all sorted into 5 neat little folders. I generally use QG to run them but I dont have the clutter or all those icons, and if for some reason I did actually want to browse I can.
apart from the 5 icon dock, those hacks make the phone look a complete mess. maybe its 8 pages for a reason, maybe the os isnt capable of holding more than 8 pages worth of apps.
There's an easier way to add "FiveIrows".
add "http://cydia/apt/touch-mania.com/" to your Cydia sources, refresh and do a search for “FiveIrows”
I'd messed around with installing 307 apps on my iPhone (2g-8GB) back in Dec-08 before the five-row and five-column stuff was in any working manner, and what happens is interesting.
The 9 4×4 pages fill up in the order things are installed, then everything else just gets installed "off screen" on page 10 if you will. These apps are still on the phone, but just can't be launched from springboard. I was able to use QuickGold to launch them, so I assume that any launcher capable of reading all the apps would be able to launch the "page 10" apps too.
Another thing, If I deleted one of the apps on , say page 9, then restarted SB, the slot would get filled in from "page 10".
I haven't done anything like that since december, but it certainly worked then, so I see no reason for it to not work the same now. Could someone give this a test and corroborate my findings for the public please?
@ Karl B: Tried to add that touch-mania repository…no dice, not working. any other bright ideas?
try the FiveIrows but nothing happen. I didn't get it ?
# Once you've installed all the above packages. Download fcsb-054.deb.
where do i download "fcsb-54.deb." ???
Hey Al,
You can download it from this link:
http://www.spaziocellulare.com/ispazio/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/fcsb-054.deb
Thanks for highlighting the issue, we have also updated the post with the
download link.
so im trying to find fiveIrows but it doesnt seem to be in cydia anymore, and it appears the five columns is now an install on cydia. so what happend to fiveirows or am i missing something?
it doesn't works
I received dependency error
here is the pic
http://i43.tinypic.com/2lvzhv8.png
Hi I want to ask if my phone is already fully unlocked by the phone company, how do i install Cydia? help pleaseee.. thanksss
Updated to the latest version of Five Icon Dock in cydia today and now my phone gets stuck on the respring. Restarted my phone and now its stuck on the loading screen. Any suggestions?