If customization is your passion, aHome is your home replacement. It even includes a Cupcake like soft [...]]]> One of the most fun things to do with your T-Mobile G1 with Google is to customize the overall appearance and functionality of the home screen. aHome is currently the most popular home replacement in the Android Market.

If customization is your passion, aHome is your home replacement. It even includes a Cupcake like soft keyboard.

aHome: Extreme Customization

There are a number of home replacements for the G1 available in the Android Market. Of all them, aHome has been rated the highest and downloaded the most. aHome is a highly customizable home replacement that supports an incredible number of features. There are an incredible number of free themes that can be downloaded and stored on the SD card. There are also a good number of paid themes available. Paid themes are stored in the phone’s memory.

Widgets
aHome comes with a couple of additional widgets. The first is a customizable weather widget that shows forecasted highs and lows and wind speed for a particular location. The other widget is a horizontal digital clock, which can be used in place of the default analog clock. aHome supports third party widgets. A number are available in the Android Market, including several fun battery monitors.

Extreme Customization
Customizing aHome is particularly easy via the aHome console. The console connects to aHome servers and the Android Market to make downloading customizations quick and easy. The console offers access to free themes, font packs, and widgets.

On the off-chance that you don’t want your wallpaper to scroll, aHome allows you to turn off that feature. It also supports auto-rotation of the home screen. Simply tilt your phone and the wallpaper rotates. A really handy feature of aHome is Auto Clear Item. It clears the icons from deleted apps from the home screens, saving you a step when you remove an app.

Custom Screen Names
aHome supports up to 10 screens and allows for modification of the screen indicator. By default, the screen number is indicated by the number of dots between the screen and the dock bar. Screens can be given custom names, or can be labled with Arabic (1, 2, 3, etc) or Roman numerals. An interesting feature is its support of Chinese numerals and Chinese celestial stems. It also supports naming of screens with sequential upper or lower case numbers. Any of the screens can be set as the main home screen.

Soft Keyboard

Drawers
Another interesting feature is the app drawer to the left of the screen and the widget drawer to the right. The app drawer works like the app drawer in the native home screen app. It contains all of your applications listed alphabetically. The widget drawer contains all available widgets. It is also sorted alphabetically. The contents of the widget drawer can be replaced with icons for the most recently used applications. The widget drawer can also be disabled.

Dock Bar
The most unusual and unique feature of aHome is the dock bar. The dock bar keeps track of your most recently used apps and displays them across the bottom of all screens. A combination of the doc bar and the ability to customize the widget drawer to show recently used apps make getting to your most frequently used apps a breeze.

Conclusion
For people who like extreme customization, aHome is a great home replacement. All of this functionality does come at a price, though. aHome and its associated themes, fonts, and widgets are big. The developers seem to be aware of this and are allowing more and more custom features to be stored on the phone’s SD card.

aHome for Android
Version: 1.6.0
Developed By: mAPPn
Price: $4.99
Filesize: 513KB

Swapping out different themes is easy [...]]]> If you want to completely change the look of your Android phone, there are many home replacement applications.  If you have browsed the Market recently you may have come across  one of the 128 aHome themes that are available.  With a recent release, Open Home also supports aHome themes.

Swapping out different themes is easy once you get the hang of it, but some users might need help their first time.  Our friend Yamil from The Rebeldroid has posted a series of videos that will show you how to download, install, and remove custome themes.  Some of the themes cost $0.99, but there are many free ones available.  Try out some of the new themes and let us know what are your favorites.

aHome Tutorial

[YouTube Link]

Open Home Tutorial

[YouTube Link]

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