This beautiful iPhone 5 theme does not require a jailbreak

Lately I guess you can say we’ve been on a kind of non-jailbreak kick. With that in mind, we’re happy to show you how you can get this awesome looking theme on your iPhone 5 without jailbreaking. The theme is called Black Orbs, and it features 31 different app icons that link to some of the more popular apps on the iPhone.

Obviously, since we have no iPhone 5 jailbreak yet, some compromises had to be made. Unlike WinterBoard, you can’t outright replace the look of an app icon with that of another. Instead, the developer of Black Orbs strategically used web clips and an easy to install profile to pull it off. It’s certainly not the perfect solution for a true iPhone 5 theme, but you have to admire the work here. Take a look inside as I show you how to install Black Orbs on your iPhone 5.

It’s as easy as installing the profile from the link above directly on to your iPhone. You don’t need to manually link or make any icons, it’s all automatically done for you. You will definitely need to download the black wallpaper to complete the look, as it looks a bit weird on patterned wallpaper. Even if you don’t choose to use black wallpaper, just make sure the background is solid.

The developer notes that installing the profile won’t harm your iPhone, so don’t worry. Actually, if you watch the video embedded above, you will see the exact contents of the profile installation. As noted, it contains the 31 web clips, which are linked to popular apps using url shortcuts. It works very much like the popular app called Launch Center Pro, which allows you to launch apps using URL shortcuts.

The developer says that he’s working on adding support for more apps, and that he will make more icons per request. Currently the package includes support for the following apps:

  • Messages
  • Google Voice
  • Apple Maps
  • Google Maps
  • App Store
  • iTunes
  • Safari
  • Facebook
  • Find My Friends
  • Google Drive
  • iBooks
  • Music
  • Mail
  • YouTube
  • Twitter
  • Waze
  • Box
  • Dropbox
  • SoundHound
  • Mobile Mouse
  • Google Earth
  • Light
  • Reminders
  • Calendar

That’s an excellent start, but remember that not all apps are compatible with URL handles. Notably, things like the stock phone app are no where to be found due to this.

Another thing to keep in mind is that installing this profile is pretty much all or nothing. You can’t pick and choose which app icons you wish to have appear on your device. That being said, you can easily place your device into wiggle mode, and delete the app icons that you have no use for. If you try to open a web clip for an app that isn’t installed on your device, then no harm is done, of course. The icon will simply open to a blank white page until you install the app in question.

To remove the theme, simply go to Settings > General > Profile and uninstall the Black Orbs profile. Afterwards, reboot your device. You can also use our handy non-jailbreak respring shortcut instead of rebooting.

Obviously a non-jailbreak theme like this is not as good as the real deal, but I’m pretty impressed with Black Orbs. What do you think?

Update: new working links added above. Apparently the downloads were so high that it broke the links.