Are you an Android user envying iOS 7? There's a skin for that
Those who want to try out the colors and icons of Apple's new operating system on a Google-powered phone now can with the jbOS7 theme.
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Android users who want to see if the grass really is greener on the Apple side of the fence now can try out the new color scheme debuting in iOS 7.
A theme called jbOS7 marries the Jelly Bean version of Android with the iOS 7 style. Its creator, shmogt, used some custom icons and TeslaCoil Software's Nova Launcher home screen replacement app.
"It is more than just a background image with some icons," shmogt said by e-mail. "The theme also has a lock screen as well as two additional screens that act as apps. For example, you press the weather icon and it takes you to the weather screen I designed rather than open the weather app. [I] tried to add as much iOS 7 feel as possible."
The new design of iOS 7, which Apple debuted Monday at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), adopts a cleaner look in favor of more elaborate icons and apps that employ skeuomorphism -- a calendar app that looks like a real-world desktop calendar, for example -- that Apple has used so widely for years.
The new, more colorful look has generated some mockery, though, including the Jony Ive Redesigns Things blog by Sasha Agapov.
Gail Santos, a 20-year-old "polygadgetrous" student who likes to experiment with her Samsung Galaxy Note II's home screen, tried the look out for a day "to show my iOS friends what Android can do," she said on Google+.
Update: Santos apparently was just trying out the look that shmogt published at theme-sharing site MyColorScreen, and Santos has removed her original post.
iOS vs. Android can be a polarizing debate, and she evidently grew annoyed with some of the Apple-vs.-Google fanboy squabbling.
"In my opinion, both are good platforms," she said on Google+. "I'm not saying Apple is better just by doing this. Come on, don't make this a big deal. The point of Android is you can do anything with it."
Updated at 10:13 p.m. PT and 1:21 a.m. PT to correct the origin of the theme and to clarify that Santos wasn't claiming credit for it and to add comments from shmogt.