Make an iPhone out of your Windows Phone

UPDATE: Before anyone has even had a chance to read my instructions, it looks like angelfire took down their link. The file was called "iPhone_WM5.zip" See if you can google it or something. Otherwise, the "easy way" is still up. Someone nice with the name of "anonymous" posted it here:
download iPhone_WM5.zip

Ok, so here's where I'm putting a guide to change your Windows mobile phone (like my HTC Hermes) into looking and sort of acting like an iPhone.
Lifehacker had an article about decking out your iPhone, and I decided to try it. I started with their "easy way." But that seemed to be cool looking, but a lot slower, and removed some of the functionality of their phone:
Turn your windows mobile phone into an iPhone <lifehacker.com>

I then tried the "hard way" which I thought was actually easier. The hard way is just to follow the instructions from angelfire.com. These instructions are poor, but they included all the software you need in one .zip which was convenient. It took me about two hours, but if you have reasonable technical skill, with my help, it could be a lot faster:
iPhone <angelfire.com>



If you are one of the precautionary types, check out the precautions at the end. Otherwise, hang on.

Step 1: Make sure you back everything up.
You don't want to lose the number of that cute member of the opposite sex you convinced to talk to you yesterday do you? Or maybe you have a note in your phone describing your idea for the next web 2.0 application.

Step 2: Download everything. All you need is the download available at angelfire. But I'd also grab the iContact from the lifehacker site. The slide2lock program is included in the angelfire download, but the one from lifehacker has a .cab installer, so I prefer that one.

Step 3: Install rlToday.
This will make your home screen have the touch icons that look like the iphone.

a) copy the .cab to your PDA.
b) install rlToday by opening the .cab from your PDA
c) copy the iPhone folder located inside the rlToday folder to your PDA and put it in \Program Files\rlToday\ using the file explorer.
d) rlToday should be a new item on your today screen. Press and hold to get a menu, then select Option. Select the iPhone skin.
e) go to your settings->Today and remove all the other items besides rlToday from your home screen.

NOTE: When I did this, I still had a scroll bar on the right, which I fixed later by editing this iPhone theme. angelfire thinks you should remove the battery and wireless indicators, but the taskbar still shows up when I change my phone to silent/vibrate so I just made room for the task bar. More on this later.

Step 4: Install Wisbar Advance.
This is a pretty slick program, which I recommend installing even if you don't like the iPhone. It changes your "Startbar" to be more useful. Copy the install .cab and install it on your PDA. Copy the iPhone directory onto your PDA in \Program Files\Lakeridge\Wisbar Advance\Themes\. Go to start->programs->Wisbar Advance and open the settings, then change the skin to iPhone. Apply the theme and exit out.

Step 5: Install the black theme.
Just copy the Black.tsk from the Today folder in the zip to my documents on your PDA, then go back to the today settings and change to that theme. Now, don't things look spiffy? This is still only half done, but you can already see the results.

Step 6: Install the Dialer.
Dialer will change the phone part of your PDA. Copy it to your PDA, and then install it.

Step 7: Install the iContact.
If you downloaded the iContact from the Lifehacker links, then install it by just copying it to a folder C:\program files\iContact\iContact.exe

Step 8: Install gCalc.
This is a spiffy looking calculator. Same thing, copy, open, install. Then copy the iPhone directory from gCalc folder in the zip to \Program Files\gCalc\Skins\. Open gCalc, hit shift, then About and select the iPhone skin.

Step 9: Install Slide2Lock.
This is a nifty program that locks your device when you turn off the screen, and you have to slide your finger to unlock it.
If you downloaded the .cab from lifehacker, you only have to install it like any of the .cabs you've already done. Here are the instructions from angelfire if you want to use the one that came with the .zip:
"Now take Slide Lock folder and copy it into My
Documents. Start the .exe in the folder to start
the slider. You can map this to a key to make it
easier to startup. "

I needed to restart the phone to get the slide2lock program to automatically show up when my phone went to standby.

Step 10: Keyboard, I skipped this step. The basic keyboard is better.

Step 11: Install VJToggle. This will hide the softbuttons on the today screen, you know the ones that say "contacts and Calendar" on the bottom? Install it like the other .CABs

Step 12: Edit rlToday with all the cool icons and programs.

UPDATE: In \Program Files\rlToday\ there is a rlToday.ini file. This contains all the information from the options menu. I've attached mine, but I have a feeling that if you just copy and paste it, things might not work because of little differences between your and my phone. If you are stuck though, it would be a good resource. Also, it would be a good thing to back up once you've got everything set up!

This is where you really get to customize your device to look like the iPhone. Go to the today screen (Desktop) and get back into the options by holding somewhere on the Today screen and schoose Options. Under the "Apps" tab, you can edit the buttons on the front screen.

Our goal here is to fill up the screen with icons that relate to applications and look good, like it does on the iPhone.

Some notes.
-The Calendar, and clock buttons are hard coded, they won't move and you don't need to make applications from them.
-The order you put the applications in the "Apps" window is the order they will show up, from the top left to the bottom right. There is intentionally a blank space in the third row, fourth column. Don't know what I'm talking about, you soon will.

So here's the order of the applications, what I linked them to, and which icon to use:

Name	Application	icon from \Program Files\rlToday\iPhone\
Text	\Windows\tmail.exe	rl_sms.png
Photos	\Windows\pimg.exe	rl_photo.png
Camera	\Windows\camera.exe	rl_cam.png
Calculator	\Program Files\gCalc\gcalc.exe	rl_cal.png
Stocks	\Windows\pxl.exe	rl_excel.png
Maps	*	rl_maps.png
Weather	*	rl_wet.png
Notes	\Windows\notes.exe	rl_notes.png
Settings	\Windows\commManager.exe	rl_settings.png
Phone	\Windows\cprog.exe	rl_phone.png
Mail	\Program Files\iContact\icontact.exe	rl_mail.png
Web	\Windows\iexplorer.exe	rl_navi.png
iPod	\Windows\wmplayer.exe	rl_ipod.png

* these are just mapped to random apps, since I don't have maps or weather functionality. I went ahead and mapped weather to word, and used the notes icon over again.

Make the "apps" tab have these applications, in this order, and when you exit out to your home screen, you should see something that's a lot like the one in the picture on angelfire.com.

The other thing I did, which took me a little while longer, was to adjust the sizes of things on the home page. The way to do that is to edit the skins.xml file in the iPhone folder in rlToday. You have to do this on your computer, and I used wordpad. Don't use word, or notepad. Change the names of anything you want. And move things around. I move the bottom row up, and all the rows further left. Then I made the size smaller (height wise) so I could still have my taskbar without having a scroll bar on the right side. Happy hacking!

Precautions:
- Don't do this if you are uncomfortable with technology. This is fun to mess around with. If you don't find it fun, then stop.

- I'm not sure where the legal line is that gets drawn on copywright protection. I did this so I could get experience with these programs, and I'll probably make things look a little bit more customized instead of the straight iPhoney. Apple may get upset with people hosting the images of their iPhone icons without their permission. These days, you have to be a lawyer to really understand.

- Did I mention back everything up? 'cause that's important.

- I have a Cingular 8525 (HTC HERMES). It should work on any phone so long as you have windows mobile 5, and about 10MB of space. Actually, it might work on a windows mobile PDA also. Dunno. One of the commenters mentioned using it on a WM6 phone.

- some stuff may not be what you expect until you reboot your phone. Hold down the power key for a few seconds, and your phone should ask you if you want to shut down.

- Spelling is never guaranteed to be right.

Well, if you start trying these instructions, get stuck and then find your way, please come back and contribute so other people don't fall into your pitfall. That's why we use wiki's right?

I'll try to stay around the comments for a while, but I make no guarantee and no warranty. Use at your own fun-fulfilled risk. If you feel this was useful to you, try to hlep others. If you have a useful hack or tip, then post it.