Android and Me » ahome widgets

5 Android Widgets We Want To See – Plus Cupcake Widget Contest

Eric Weiss — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 20:00:08 +0000

By now many of you have read (or at least glanced at) the article by Jeff Sharkey describing how to use the new tools in the Android 1.5 SDK to program widgets. The idea of widgets on the homescreens of our Androids got all of us giddy with excitement over here at Android and Me and we began to brainstorm the widgets we want.

1) Calendar / To Do List
This is a no-brainer. It looks like a Calendar Widget example is included in the SDK so we can expect this soon after the new version of the OS “ships” with many versions afterwards from developers featuring their own tweaks.

2) News / Finance / Sports Ticker
A simple RSS reader could scroll headlines, sports scores and stock quotes on your home screen.

3) Control Panel
I imagine this as a panel across the top row that looks like brushed metal with a series of toggle switches on it. Each one would turn on and off an option buried within Settings. WiFi, 3G, Silent, Airplane Mode, etc.

4) Weather
Weather apps are some of the most popular regardless of phone platform. Naturally we expect to see a weather widget. Ideally it would look like a regular icon but the image would be representative of the weather conditions. The label would be the city name.

5) Photo Slide Show
Static images are nice. Slide shows are even better. Set the increment of time for the photo to change or it changes after an event (such as after every phone call).

We want to hear about what type of widgets you guys would like to see. Reply below and let us know.

Update: Our friend Darkrift from Android-DLs.com has launched his first Droid Dev Challenge. Similar to our Android Bounty, he is trying to encourage developers to code widgets for the pending Android 1.5 update. If you would like to participate, head on over to the contest page and place a donation or leave feedback.

Android 1.5 will bring a flood of new widgets to the Market.

aHome: Extreme Phone Customization

Christopher Earle — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 22:11:33 +0000

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

7 aHome Themes From On Interaction. Plus Widgets.

Taylor Wimberly — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 07:24:11 +0000

Themes have flooded the Android Market following the success of all the new home applications. aHome now includes its own theme browser and Google will be adding a themes section to the Android Market soon. On Interaction is one developer devoted soley to desktop additions. Their ColorBook series of themes have become popular for their lite design and quick response times. When customers began to request sports themes, On Interaction quickly responded.

On Interaction has also released several widgets for aHome including QuickTweet and QuickNote. QuickTweet is one of the fastest ways to update Twitter when using the soft keyboard included with aHome. QuickNote allows you to attach sticky notes anywhere to your desktop and includes several themes.

I have QuickTweet installed and its great for instant Twitter updates. No longer do I have to wait for Twidroid to load and update if I only want to send a short tweet. If you are a constant Twitter user, I would suggest giving it a look.

What other types of themes would you like to see from developers? Are there any widgets you would like to see made? Have you even attempted to install a theme?