Tag: HOME SCREEN

Picking an Android launcher is tricky business. Most of them have so many features and config options that it takes a matter of weeks to learn all of their intricacies -- and you can't possibly know which one suits your needs without trying out a few! HeLauncher, by offering no less than 10 different home screen styles, gives you a simpler way of finding a home screen that suits your style. ...

Seesmic has updated its Android app with much-improved Facebook support. Users can now add multiple Facebook accounts, and post, comment, and like items on walls and Facebook pages they administer. Homescreen widgets have also been added, and all Seesmic's social networks are supported -- Facebook, Twitter, Google Buzz, and Salesforce Chatter. Support for Google's goo.gl URL shortener has been ...

It's now been a couple of months since Google Reader hit Android, which didn't quite live up to expectations. Luckily, developers at Google seem to have been listening to the innumerable complaints, and the app received its first big update today, bringing with it a choice of widgets, more syncing, and more overall functionality. The widgets are probably the first thing that users may be ...

Android's greatest, platform-defining feature is customizability. The entire operating system is open-sourced, APIs are laid bare, and almost every user-facing part of the OS can be modified by apps. There's no surprise, then, that replacement apps exist for almost every part of Android's stock functionality. In turn, to complete the circle of life, new versions of Android incorporate the ...

This week's tips series is all about Android, highlighting some the operating system's built-in utilities, and better ways of getting stuff done. For other technology tips, check our Tips index. When you first try an alternative launcher or Web browser, Android asks if you'd like that application to be the default from now on. You may say yes and then come to regret it later on – perhaps ...

This week's tips series is all about Android, highlighting some the operating system's built-in utilities, and better ways of getting stuff done. For other technology tips, check our Tips index. Android is inherently capable of multitasking, and has a sophisticated mechanism for deciding which applications should be kept running in the background, and which should be killed to conserve system ...

LauncherPro, the fan-favorite Android home screen replacement, has been updated! This is not the much-hyped complete rewrite of the codebase -- that's coming soon! -- but it does bring one of the most-requested features: home screen transitions. Rather than tell you all about them, we've made a video that shows off the four new Compiz-like transitions -- it's embedded after the break. Suffice ...

The most popular home screen and 'app drawer' replacement app for Android is LauncherPro -- but I'm not sure why. I mean, sure, it gives you a scrolling dock, and up to seven home screens -- big whoop. Maybe I'm just a bit jaded. I have recently reviewed two very good home screen apps, after all. The truth is, though, except for a nifty scrolling, customizable dock, there's simply no reason to ...

Sitting like rough and tawdry monarchs atop of the Android home screen and app launcher pile are LauncherPro and ADW.Launcher. We've reviewed Zeam Launcher, and looked at Go Launcher and QuickDesk, but somehow the two big boys have always escaped our critical eye. Well, no more! Today we're going to look at ADW.Launcher. It's a free download, but there's an 'EX' version that will cost you about ...

It's always amazed me how phones, with processors that are hundreds of times more powerful than early computers, can lag. You know what I mean: head into your address book and try to find a contact while your phone is still booting up, or loading a website. It's pathetic, really. One solution is to put faster and faster CPUs in phones, but the alternative is to strip out some of the heavier ...

Swiss Codemonkeys are best known as the guys behind the awesome AppBrain website/Android application, which is the de-facto Market for Android (since Google doesn't maintain a Market you can access from the PC). So when I noticed Swiss Codemonkeys has an app called Best Wallpapers, I felt compelled to give it a shot. It's a very straightforward app; you get a list of categories, including ...

There are quite a few homescreen app launchers for Android; the best-known ones, ADW and LauncherPro, are very powerful but tend to be a tad on the chunky side. When you're in the middle of doing something and need to quickly switch to another task, you may not always like to go via your cluttered homescreen. Enter QuickDesk: this quick utility is basically like a single homescreen page, with ...

Now that my Android device is cluttered with apps and games, I figured it was time to tidy up my home screen -- and Go Launcher is up to the task. It's a highly customizable home replacement which supports app folders (like iOS), and widgets, multiple pages, and a huge number of user-configurable settings. Tap the grid icon and Go displays all your apps in a paged 4x4 grid -- which you can ...

One of the things I like about the Google Android home screen is that it's easy to customize. You can arrange program shortcuts the way you like them and insert widgets for news, weather, search, and other functions. And if you run out of room or just want to use separate spaces for work tools, games, and phone-oriented apps, you get a few virtual workspaces. Just swipe to the left or right to ...

According to a patent filing back in February, Apple may be working on a new location-specific home screen for the iPhone. In the patent, Apple outlines how a user could set a persistent default location in the weather app, and set location-based arrangements of app icons on the home screen. The patent drawings show icons for local contacts, local weather, local time and local maps. Instead of ...