Permanently hide the Stocks app icon on iPhone
Feb 03, '10 07:30:00AM
Contributed by: Anonymous
If you're like me and have no use for the Stocks application, I'm sure you've wished of a method to remove it so it doesn't take up home screen real estate. A few months back, I searched for a method but I found none that suited my needs. I wanted something that would not require a jailbreak, and I wanted the change to be permanent. I remembered that disabling an application through the Restrictions panel removes it from the home screen, so I figured adding Stocks to the list of restricted apps should have the same result.
Note that this hint requires connecting your iPhone to a Windows machine, either directly or through a virtualization application such as Fusion or Parallels.
This could be done lots of ways, but I'll describe a couple. Keep in mind this is an iPhone hint more than a Mac hint, so unfortuanely it requires some Windos-only software. Unfortunately, I've found no comparable Mac version -- if anyone knows of one, please let us know in the comments below! This could be done without this software, but it would then require jailbreaking. Download and install the trial version of iBackupBot onto a Windows machine before continuing onto the hint.
- Enable Restrictions on your iPhone (skip this step if you already have this enabled). Go into your iPhone's Settings and select Restrictions from the General section. You'll be prompted to set a passcode. Toggle the Safari restriction to Off -- this is only temporary. Notice that even though you've enabled restrictions, your iPhone isn't crippled in any way since each restriction must be set individually.
- Connect your iPhone to the Windows machine and run iTunes. Your iPhone may or may not sync depending on whether it's your main library or not. Make a backup of your iPhone by Control-clicking your iPhone's entry in the source menu and selecting Back Up. Once complete, quit iTunes and launch iBackupBot.
- Once iBackupBot launches and detects your iPhone backups, you'll see them listed on the left panel. Select the most recent one (it should be the one iTunes just created). Upon selecting the backup, the right panel will populate with all of the files contained in the backup. Locate and double click the following file to open it in iBackupBot's built in editor: Library » Preferences » com.apple.springboard.plist.
- Look through the open file and locate the following section. (If you were already using Restrictions to disable other apps, this may look slighly different):
<key>SBParentalControlsApplications</key>
<array>
<string>com.apple.mobilesafari</string>
</array>
- At this point, simply replace the line...
<string>com.apple.mobilesafari</string>
...with the following line....
<string>com.apple.stocks</string>
- Again, look through the open file and locate the following section, which is the home screen layout (these should be in groups of four):
<key>iconState2</key>
Continue to look through the section and find your Stocks application:
<string>com.apple.stocks</string>
Replace the line above with the following:
<string>com.apple.mobilesafari</string>
- Save and close the document.
- Select the following from the main menu: File » Restore, and select 'Restore only modified file(s)' and press OK. Wait few minutes until the restore completes.
Your iPhone should restart and the changes should have taken effect. The Stocks application should be hidden, and the Safari application should be in the location where Stocks used to reside. This change will be permanent, even if you sync your iPhone back with your iTunes library. If you restore your iPhone, this change will remain as long as you restore your settings from a backup.
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Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20100131111103616