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operative.alex

Member since: Nov 8th, 2010

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LauncherPro for Android hands-on: it works, but it won't wow you (Download Squad)

Jan 17th 2011 6:55PM @Sebastian Anthony

Yeah, the threading is a bit off. Oh well.

I'm a widget guy myself (it's one of the reasons I went with Android, and checked out a WP7 phone). It's just...faster.

I haven't seen too many good email widgets, but I do use Seven (it's in beta, and requires an account w/ them, which kind of stinks, but it's worth checking out) (Signup Link: http://community.seven.com/main.php ). The syncing with google was a bit wonky last time I checked it out, but it's the only email program I found that actually does proper push notifications for hotmail.com and live.com email addresses, which made it invaluable for me because I still have a live.com account that I use. The widget isn't anything spectacular, but they have one, which is a big plus. It's worth checking out, at any rate, especially if you have some non-gmail accounts that you want to get push notifications and folder syncing for.

LauncherPro for Android hands-on: it works, but it won't wow you (Download Squad)

Jan 17th 2011 6:45PM @Sebastian Anthony

Well, I love talking about stuff like this, and I am kind of a junkie when it comes to trying out new ways to interact with devices, so I tend to have some pretty strong opinions about stuff like this. Of course, I wouldn't have even had a chance to check out Zeam if it wasn't for the article about, so I'm happy to talk about the various things I like about each.

Another interesting (well, for me) feature of LP that I used was the ability to map the home button to do different things when on the "main" homepage. For example, the way I had my device set up was that when I hit home, it would bring me to the main homepage (which for me was just a beautiful widgets weather widget and the LP+ calendar), and if I was already there, it would bring up my app drawer. I liked being able to use a physical button to do that, for whatever reason.

You can set the home button to do a lot of things- it can open screen previews, open/close the app drawer, open/close notifications and show/hide the status bar, or take you to your default screen (if you're there, it does one of the other actions. It's a little thing, but for me, it was a big help. I actually prefer Zeam's "swipe up" style right now, but you're limited to a certain number of actions.

The last thing I'll say that I like about LP- it lets you resize any widget, even if the widget isn't made to be resized. It doesn't always work well (sometimes you just end up with an empty space), but it really does allow for a lot of customization. If they added that a swipeable dock icons to Zeam, I'd probably switch for good.

Either way though, both are great choices for people looking to make their android experience better, especially if they're people that love to tinker with settings. I still think Slidescreen is the best homescreen for people who want the simplest thing ever. It's one screen, very few settings, but displays a good amount of info at a glance (calendar, twitter, facebook, stocks, email, sms, and google reader updates, which it can actually sync with reader). Basically, it's the homescreen I put on people's android phones when they don't know how to use a smartphone (my entire family, for example)

LauncherPro for Android hands-on: it works, but it won't wow you (Download Squad)

Jan 17th 2011 5:49PM @Sebastian Anthony I personally wasn't an HTC sense guy (I was, however, a TouchFlo 3D guy back when I had a WinMo phone). I just like instant information display, and I like being able to see updates as they happen, so I'm pretty much sold on the launcher pro widgets.

I still like the look/feel of the Zeam dock better, but I miss the "scroll up" feature from Launcher Plus, in addition to the widgets (honestly, I'd pay just for the calendar one) is a big selling point for me.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that some of your criticisms of LP aren't true. I'm a home screen switching junkie, and I really like some features of all the big launchers. Truth be told, Zeam is the closest to replacing LP for me, but man...I do miss those things that only LP does after using them for a few weeks.

LauncherPro for Android hands-on: it works, but it won't wow you (Download Squad)

Jan 17th 2011 3:22PM @operative.alex

Don't know how that weird formatting thing happened, my post was all out of order.

Basically though: the widgets,not the dock, is the most useful thing in LauncherPro (I seriously have been missing them now that I'm trying Zeam for a week) and the dock that you say you like, is even more useful than you think, because each icon can be tapped or swiped, resulting in two different actions. Oh, and another thing you didn't mention: you can customize the icons in the dock as well. I happen to like the stock ones that come with LauncherPro (the minimalist all-white ones), but you can actually download (or create) custom icon packs to make your phone look like you want it to.

Seriously, I like Zeam a lot...but I miss the calendar widget enough that I've literally tried out 5 of them in the past week to try and replicate what LauncherPro had, and I miss the ability to have each icon double-task for me in the dock. I really just want those two teams to get together, mash their ideas, and give me the perfect homescreen replacement...with the LauncherPro widgets.

LauncherPro for Android hands-on: it works, but it won't wow you (Download Squad)

Jan 17th 2011 3:05PM Wow, kind of an incomplete review, if you're not willing to spend 3 bucks to access what amounts to the most important feature of LaucherPro: the widgets.

I have recently switched to Zeam, thanks in large part to the review here, and I enjoy it. However, I've been scrambling to find replacement widgets. I was actually going to write the author a note to see if he'd be willing to release his widgets as a separate pack, because they are by far the most useful widgets I have ever used.

You also failed to mention (or maybe you didn't know) that each icon on the dock can also have a secondary "swipe" motion. For example, I use Google voice. I have it set so that when I tap on the icon in the dock, it launches Google voice. However, when I swipe up over the icon, I have it set to change my usage of google voice (toggle from "use always" to "ask me everytime" to "never use google voice" for outgoing calls. Tapping on my email allows me to go to gmail. Swiping up brings me to Seven, for my hotmail. It's an extremely useful function that wasn't really given enough time in your review.

Frankly, that's my assessment of your entire review: you tried it, but didn't really put enough time in to really understand HOW to use it, and you didn't spend a small amount of money to review the absolute best part about it.

If you'd like, I will pay the $3 for you, and you can do a re-review, or at the very least update this one. I guarantee you that after a few days of use, you will miss the scrollable, fully-featured widgets on every other homescreen you try (speaking of which, you should try out Slidescreen Pro- it's not a tinkerers best homescreen, but I put in on my mom's phone because it's really, really simple.
Allow me to post what you're missing out on:

The calendar widget is the best widget I've used for managing my appointments. The widget has both a monthly view and a "next appointments" view that puts all of your upcoming appointments (with color tabs for different calendars) in full display, and is fully scrollable (I never reached the end of it in my usage). You can switch back and forth between these views with a single click (the only such widget I've used that has this feature), and can be resized on the fly (another useful feature that Zeam doesn't have).

The Friends view is a live, updating Twitter and Facebook feed that allows you to post, retweet, reply, et cetera all from the widget (no app launching). It's not as fully featured as, say, twetdeck, but then again, it's the best widget for keeping up to date on stuff. You can manually configure the amount of data it holds in cache, and can resfresh the data via a small refresh icon at the bottom (the same is true of all LauncherPro widgets). The Facebook and Twitter widgets are the same, the friends view just combines them. You can also set a program that launches when you hit the button so if you want to use Tweetdeck, Touiter, Twidroyd or any other program, you can use it.

The bookmarks widget and contacts widgets are simple, just a scrollable grid of icons. they're not the best out there, but they're useful. I never used the contacts one, but the bookmark widget was one of the many that I used.

In my opinion, Launcher Pro is one of the best home screen replacement apps. It's not as robust as AWDLauncher. It's not as simply as Zeam. But it has feature that simply aren't replicated elsewhere. The simple "display a small icon telling me how many missed calls or emails I have" in the dock alone is worth the price of admission for a guy like me, and the widgets are simply better than any other widgets on the marketplace-- the only downside is that the widgets only launch in LauncherPro (you can't get to them from Zeam, for example). The

BeejiveIM for Android giveaway (Download Squad)

Nov 12th 2010 12:57PM I'd like it.

Hands-on with RockMelt, the underwhelming Chrome 6-based Facebook-connected Web browser (Download Squad)

Nov 8th 2010 4:21PM I take a much different approach to this, I guess.

You look at the small developer pool and say "uh oh, if it's not coming from a big company, support is going to be terrible."

I look at the small size of the organization and I think "acquisition material".

The browser is obviously not much more than a facelift for Chrome...but it's a well executed one. While you bemoan the load times for facebook login, I see it as a small, manageable problem. All it would take, in my opinion, is the fact that the browser should open first, signing you into facebook in the background, and the side tabs don't appear until it does.

See, I may be wrong about this, but I look at the future of the webs, and I keep seeing a bunch of applications, rather than a ton of individual websites. Maybe I'm skewed. I'm the kind of guy who loves programs like Trillian and Digsby (and the new Windows Live Messenger). I think pulling together chat and status update streams without having to be on the website is tremendously useful.

You take that capability and stick it directly in the browser? It's a good fit. Yes, it's using an outdated version of Chrome. Yes, there are potential flaws. But the good points (essentially a friends list that never requires you to leave the window you're on) are still worth capitalizing on. The search feature alone in impressive to me. While I'd prefer a unified bar, the ability to preview the stories before jumping to the page is very useful and a lot faster than back and forth browsing, or having to open everything in a new tab.

I look at the functionality that this offers and I think "man, this would certainly be useful in a Chrome-OS based system. Losing out on a stand-alone chat program like Trillian would actually be a bummer for me. With this (and some added features, obviously), there wouldn't be as much need for a stand-along program.

Honestly, the people who could use this most I think would actually be Microsoft. Buy these guys up, and introduce them to the guys making IE9 as well as Windows Live Messenger, and have these guys help bolt WLM onto IE9. There are a lot of great things about WLM (for one, the way you view photos is about 1,000 times better than going to Facebook)...but I'm always a bit annoyed that I have to keep another program open for it.

If I could run IE9 and have my MSN, and Facebook friends populating along the side, with quick ways to search, share and maintain my RSS feeds...well, I'd be a happy man.

At any rate, yes, the browser has flaws. Big ones. Yet, if you look at it as a science project rather than as a commercial release, it's a lot more impressive. Someone who makes other browsers should definitely look into hiring these guys, because their ideas combined with the forthcoming projects from Google and Microsoft actually have a chance to make those browsers better.

They're getting a lot of press, which at least suggest that users are enjoying the experience for the most part. Sure, it's not a "OMG, my life is changed forever" moment, but despite the aging internals, the product itself manages to do some things that are very impressive. If, given that they are small and using only the open source code they can get, they can actually improve upon Chrome's default behavior...well, imagine what they could do with support from Google...or Microsoft.

At least that's how I look at it.