Want a sexy shiny new iPhone facelift? Since so many people have enjoyed using SummerBoard on their iPhone to theme and style the Springboard, now our good friend Jay Freeman has created WinterBoard. The idea is the same as SummerBoard but as always done better and with more features. The basic functionality is to allow you to theme Springboard by changing the icons of applications at will, using a custom wallpaper, and even modify the status bar and dock, all for the new 2.0 iPhone software.

While SummerBoard has always been closed and is now owned by RipDev and might not be free in the future with Installer 2.0, WinterBoard is both open source and free.

WinterBoard allows mixing themes together and loading multiple themes at once. So people can write themes focusing on just one area of the theme if desired. WinterBoard supports legacy SummerBoard themes. Another cool feature is video wallpapers, letting you set any .mp4 file as your background, as well as other things like web clips and sounds. And also wallpapers in WinterBoard can be played as a slide show screensaver as they change in the background. Pretty much any file listed in this list can be themed on the iPhone with WinterBoard.

WinterBoard even allows you to create themes using web development languages like HTML and CSS which will bring in a whole new dimension to creating themes. Text fields can also be themed which means things like the Calendar icon date, or icon labels are customizable.

There are alreay hundreds of themes available in Cydia for WinterBoard. You can see them categorized by Apps, Battery, Complete themes, Keyboard, Sounds, SpringBoard, System, Video and more. Most of them come with screenshots so you can see a glimpse before installing. After installing a new theme, open up WinterBoard and you will see it listed.

From there tap the line for your theme and a checkbox will appear next to the item. Remember that Themes are layered on top of one another. So the higher a theme is the more precedence it has. You can drag your themes by pressing on the 3 lines on the right and dragging the item up or down. Generally you want full themes to be on top and minor themes on the bottom to get the correct behavior. Then close WinterBoard and wait for SpringBoard to restart.

Use iPhone mods and hacks at your own risk! Installing 3rd Party iPhone apps requires you to jailbreak the iPhone before installing the native software and apps. You can use Cydia to install this app. Browse the full list of all iPhone and iPod touch native 3rd party apps filed under the software category.

More details about WinterBoard here