One of the great mysteries of the iOS user experience is the lack of contact pictures in some apps, even when their use would make great sense. If you’re like me, and you have a hard time identifying most people by name, so, sometimes it might be frustrating that many of the native iOS apps, such as Contacts and Messages, do not display contact images by default, unless you know a workaround.
If you own a jailbroken device, however, you can install Copic, an easy-to-use jailbreak tweak that adds contact pictures next to contact names on call lists, contact lists and text messages, as well as any standard app that displays a contact list, without greatly interfering with the user experience, as you’ll be able to tell from the pictures below.
I must say, the contact images look particularly great next to the SMS “balloons”, don’t you think?
The installation of this tweak is incredibly seamless and, in fact, doesn’t add an icon to the home screen. It will, however, add a section to your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch’s Settings app, allowing you to choose on which apps you want the a contact picture to be displayed. You can also turn off Copic altogether if you’re so inclined by pulling a simple switch.
Some longtime iOS users who have jailbroken their devices might be familiar with similar tweaks, such as SMSEnhancer and iPicMyContacts, although they’re both targeted at the SMS and Contacts apps respectively. Copico, on the other hand, is capable of working with most built-in apps, therefore replacing both of those tweaks.
In order to install Copic, you need to have a jailbroken iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. You can follow our step by step guide posted here to jailbreak your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch on iOS 4.3.5 using Redsn0w (or PwnageTool), or on iOS 4.3.3 using Redsn0w, PwnageTool, Sn0wbreeze & JailbreakMe (that last one being the easiest).
This tweak requires iOS 4.0 or higher. This jailbreak tweak is available from the BigBoss repository, which should be available by default on Cydia, for $1.29. Whether this is a price worth paying or not is completely up to you, but this tweak works as advertised.
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