I’m creating a zombie preparedness app for iOS and I thought it would be cool to have an “Apocalypse mode” which is similar to Airplane mode in that it replaces the status bar carrier icon with a little airplane except possibly with a little mushroom cloud or something instead?
Apocalypse mode would just be a boolean flag in my app the disables all data connection required features (only within the app, not using any private APIs or anything…). If possible, I would still like to have the clock, battery life, Bluetooth icons and whatever else that pops up onto the status bar during normal operation.
I’m looking at the MTStatusBarOverlay library to implement this feature. Related (Stackoverflow post here). I know there is a possibility my app could get rejected for style because of this, but my thought is that I don’t want to stray to far from the norm and cross my fingers Apple doesn’t jump on me for it.
My question is
- How can I copy over the clock and battery life icons? Do I need to hook into an event or is there a UI element I can add.
- Am I going about this the right way? Would it be better to just make a transparent overlay on top of the normal status bar with a mushroom cloud that overlays the carrier icon instead of replacing the status bar entirely? I’m worried about variable length carrier icons…
Of course option 3 is I just forget that idea entirely and make some sort of different background or something for this mode, but that seems lame 😛
I had a go with something similar a while ago. I created a status bar overlay that accepted touch events, but didn’t block the status bar from receiving touches, which is crucial for app store acceptance.
You can check out my question and my answer, however keep in mind it might not be actual anymore, it worked great in iOS4, but never tested it on 5. Worth a try though.
As for the overlay itself, I suggest covering everything up to the clock, and leaving the rest transparent, it should do the job.