Archive for: theme
We here at GS thought it was a bold, yet welcome move when we saw Toyota release an official Toyota Scion theme for distribution in the Cydia App Store. Apple on the other hand wasn’t too thrilled. In a forum post detailed over at ModMyi, forum owner and repo admin Kyle Matthews claims to have been contacted by Toyota’s advertising agency “Velti”. The story is that Apple contacted the ad agency more or less demanding the ad be removed from circulation as well as the theme. After a couple of phone calls the deed was done and the Toyota Scion theme is no more.
Perhaps someone should tip Apple off to the fact that it is 100% legal to jailbreak and make use of Cydia…
If you’re eagerly awaiting Honeycomb to land on your device, or for an upcoming Honeycomb-powered device to launch, why not get in the spirit early? Install the Google Chrome Honeycomb theme and get touches of the new sleek UI enhancements that Android 3.0 provides right inside your browser window.
Download: Honeycomb Google Chrome Theme
Apple may know a thing or two about designing beautiful, intuitive user interfaces, but that doesn’t mean other competitors don’t get it right every once in a while as well. Windows Phone 7 in particular is more or less the polar opposite of Apple’s mobile OS. Instead of bright and flashy, WP7 is subdued and extremely minimal in design — truly unique in the modern smartphone world. It is so unique in fact that many people want to port the minimalistic UI to other platforms.
Truth be told, the above theme — called “OS7″ isn’t the first attempt at bringing WP7′s tiled interface to Curpertino’s iDevices, but it is certainly one of best attempts that we’ve seen. Complete with static and live tiles, auto-generated lists, and ability to run independently of Winterboard means OS7 is worth a hard look. Interested individuals can hit up the thread over at ModMyi to get in on the open beta. Oh, one more thing — the theme is plug-in-play, meaning no paid add-ons or third party plugins needed. Nice and easy, like it should be.
Video walk-through after the jump…
The once great king in the mobile world, Symbian, is dying a slow, painful death. Among the many upgrades the platform needs, the most easily visible one is the UI. It’s old and stogy (of course, that’s what Maemo is supposed to fix). But thanks to the easily customized nature of the platform, 3rd party skins and themes can be easily installed. On that note, if you’d like to get the HTC Sense UI theme running on your Symbian S60 or S^3 device, a quick trip to the Nokia Mobile Blog will net you all the necessary files. A word of caution: If you’re really interested in this, you’ll want to download the needed files sooner rather than later. Past ports of Sense UI to other platforms have brought out HTC’s legal hounds. I can’t imagine this instance would be any different.
With that out of the way, we’ll add that the theme at least looks rather nice and includes the full swath of features present on any normal HTC handset, save for the obvious such as HTCSense.com support. So go ahead and give it a shot. Be sure to let us know how it goes!
- December 13, 2010 1:05 pm
While the iPhone 4 may be my current device of choice, I put in many months with a Moto Droid and came to appreciate the platform overall. During that time there were a few apps that really stood out, particularly Launcher Pro. Say what you will about the so called performance of the stock Android launcher, but at the end of the day the harsh reality is that it sucks. I’ve seen phones ranging from 528MHz up to 1.5GHz overclocked display shakey, stuttery homescreens. Launcher Pro fixes that and then some.
Besides the dramatically smoother and faster homescreen interaction, Launcher Pro also allows end users to customize the look and layout with skins. On that note, Launcher Pro forum user “Benny879″ went ahead and crafted a few Gingerbread-themed skins for users to install.
If the green is too much for you, there’s a gray-toned version available as well. The additional color schemes and any install help you may seek can be found in the Launcher Pro Forums.
The general consensus amongst smartphone enthusiasts is that Android skins and most homescreens are more trouble than they’re worth. Delays in updates and the reduced performance they often bring negate any advantages. But Kite UI could make believers out of even us.
Much like Windows Phone 7, Kite UI is different. It’s much more free-flowing in nature to the point where individual apps blend into each other rather than appearing as walled gardens of code, designed for one specific task.
Unfortunately for those of you ready to download Kite UI this very instant, the project is in it’s early stages. With that said, the small team behind Kite UI is looking for experienced coders to get the project moving on a fast track. Anyone who fits the mold is asked to check out this thread over at XDA Forums as well as shoot a PM to XDA member “Liquidice“.
What do you think: The first truly worthwhile Android skin/homescreen replacement? Hop inside for some screenshots and a quick video showing off Kite UI in action…
- November 24, 2010 1:13 pm
For the last year, HTC has been hitting plenty of hits on the Android front. Using their Sense UI layed atop Google’s mobile OS has brought both companies quite a bit of success. It’s almost hard to remember when HTC and Windows Mobile were just as friendly. But a time may come when HTC tosses Android aside too and moves forward — alone. In an interview with Pocket-Lint, HTC’s director of User Experience, Drew Bamford, stated the following:
“We will do everything necessary to create the best experience possible. Right now, working with Microsoft and Google is the best approach, but that might not be the case in the future”
Basically, if HTC isn’t given the freedoms they’re seeking from either Microsoft or Google, they’ll find it elsewhere or create a new experience from scratch. The latter option — making their own OS — is both intriguing and worrisome. On one side of the coin, options are great. However, do we really need another mobile OS?
With that said, we shouldn’t worry too much about HTC leaving Android or Windows Phone 7 anytime soon. Bamford states that he believes both companies will give HTC the access and freewill they are seeking. Let’s hope.
In recent years, Microsoft hasn’t been known to be exceptionally talented when it comes to design. Sure, Windows 7 is pretty slick and a big step up from Windows XP, but there’s just something about it. It lacks a certain eye candy. Perhaps that’s part of my OS X/Apple-loving side poking through. Nevertheless, theming and skinning can go quite a ways to help.
If you were staring at your desktop, desperately seeking a freshened look, let me run something by you. Microsoft has had a themes gallery available on their website since Windows 7 was released. There are many, many different options to choose from. And now for Halloween, it appears that Microsoft is getting all festive.
A new theme called “Eerie Autumn” is available in the themes gallery and consists of plenty of dark tones and spooky wallpapers. As usual, you’re free to swap out the wallpapers and window border coloring according to your own taste. But honestly, the dark look is just so cool.
Windows 7 Themes Gallery
Quick! If a Windows Phone 7 theme is what you seek for your Android device, you best get hoppin’. The theme you see above is dubbed “Android Phone 7″ (see what they did there…) and created by newone757 of XDA. No, it’s not “original” in the sense that it borrows quite a bit from Microsoft’s upcoming Windows Phone 7. But originality isn’t the point. Imitation is. Why do it? Because you can. That’s why.
With that said, Team Redmond is probably readying the lawyers as we speak. So if this theme tickles your fancy, you might want to download it asap while there’s still something worth getting tickled over.
Oh yeah, there’s quite a bit of underlying tweaking that has to be done by the end user. This isn’t nearly as simple as your standard ROM Manager theme install. There’s several stray files, images, fonts, etc. that all need tending to, with some of those not even included. Best get crackin’…
