Instantly Hide & Unhide iPhone Applications

If you've been an iPhone owner for any significant amount of time you have likely had friends or family ask to grope your shiny new toy. While most of us don't necessarily mind letting others play with the iPod, YouTube, or Safari, allowing them access to Mail and your Text Messages is another story. Luckily almost any item on the home screen can be hidden with a simple double tap. Read on for the how-to.

The ability to hide and unhide applications was likely created specifically for Steve Jobs to present the iPod touch, but it has made its way into the latest software update. This handy little feature was found by a TUAW reader and recently mentioned on the blog.
So how is it done? The feature, as you might have guessed, isn't enabled by default. To enable it, you need to have a jailbroken iPhone with some means of accessing the filesystem so you can edit com.apple.springboard.plist. Specifically:
Navigate to "/var/root/Library/Preferences/" and open up "com.apple.springboard.plist" in a plain text editor.

In the text editor, look for "SBEnableALS". Below it, add these two lines:
SBEnableAppReveal
Save that and restart your iPhone. When you get back to the home screen, Safari, YouTube, and The iTunes Store will be hidden. To unhide them, double tap their respective spaces.
To enable hiding of other applications, add the following to the Info.plist file contained within the .app folder:
SBIsRevealable
To disable hiding, change the "true" variable to "false". It should end up looking like:
SBIsRevealable

The disadvantages? For one, every time SpringBoard is restarted, the apps become hidden again. This means that you'll have to unhide apps every time you restart or install new applications. They do stay unhidden when you put the iPhone to sleep, though. Also, some apps, such as the iPod, are "special" and won't work with this trick. You may also notice a slight bit of lag when you first tap a revealable app because it's waiting for the second tap, but it shouldn't hurt anything. Bottom line: it's not for everyone, but it's handy for those who'd use it.

Now, the next time someone asks to see your iPhone, you won't need to worry about them changing your settings, calling Aunt Betty, or reading your emails.

Enjoy!