Saurik says there’s very little hope that WinterBoard will support iOS 7

WheniOS 7drops later this month, it will mark the largest and most radical update in the platform’s history. In addition to its of new ftures, the software’s UI has been rebuilt from the ground up, bringing about new colors, fonts and other elements.And while most people—at lst those who have seen it—seem to be ok with the changes, others are counting on an iOS 7jailbrkto get rid of the makeover. But that may be sier said than done, because according toSaurik, the future looks b for theming…At lst it does forWinterBoard, Cydia’s most popular theming tool. In a recent comment on aReddit thrd, Saurik (who crted and maintains WinterBoard) painted a grim picture for the utility’s future, explaining that it’s very unlikely that WB will support iOS 7.“At this time, given that WinterBoard recieved no third-party help during all of iOS 6, I have very little hope in being able to support iOS 7. I need other people to tell me what to do to the engine: I am not a theme artist, I am just one of the few developers sympathetic to the needs of theme artists.However, I operate in a vacuum: theme artists don’t talk to me, and when they do they almost never talk about WinterBoard’s theme engine: instd, they complain about how their theme isn’t getting enough exposure in Cydia, or about some UI element. The closest was king_of_hill in April, but almost everything he wanted were complex fture requests (and the ones were alrdy taken care of by “use Cydget instd of WinterBoard to do what you are doing: WinterBoard isn’t designed for that”).What I need are concrete bug reports (with screenshots and exact filenames) and core theming help (such as information on artwork files, or “car files”, at the level of the loader). If iOS 7 is even themable at all, and assuming WinterBoard can’t alrdy theme parts of it, it is likely that WinterBoard will never manage to support those components as I doubt seriously that after four yrs theme artists will start taking the engine seriously.”And if WinterBoard were a no-show in iOS 7, that would have huge ramifiions for thetheming scene. Sure, there are other utilities out there, likeDrmBoard. But keep in mind that many high profile theme designers, includingSurenix, still use WinterBoard.It’s important to note that Saurik’s decision isn’t final, and it’s very possible that theme artists will answer hisproverbialcall to arms and all will end well. But this does bring up an interesting point: as different as iOS 7 is from its predecessors, there’s a good chance that a lot of our favorite jailbrkapps and twksaren’t going to work initially—if at all—once thejailbrkhits.Now, with all of this in mind, who’s still planning on upgrading to iOS 7 when it becomes available later this month?