Loo-Lee.com

I've tried various versions/incarnations of all of the Android home replacements I'm aware of: dxTop, Open Home, and aHome. I settled on aHome lite as my favorite because it was exactly that - lite. There were a couple of handsome, practical widgets, and the battery monitor and weather widget sat on my primary panel. dxTop's dual tabs for the app library and running programs made more sense than a dedicated widget button, but aHome  had a dock and allowed me an entire extra row for icons. I was happy.

Then I had to upgrade aHome, and found my carefully-organized and categorized icons had been erased. Not. cool. I never saw the full, priced version of aHome in the Market, so I decided to search online. I purchased the full version via Paypal at the dev's website, and got an .apk in my email. So does this mean I can't upgrade via the Market and Android's useful built-in version-checking? So far, the answer is yes. This should be remedied. The upside to this arrangement is that I was drawn to their message board that is quickly becoming a community.

I had rebuilt my four homescreens for aHome Lite before buying, and was sad to find they didn't transfer over to the full version. So, I set about getting things back in order again. The first thing I noticed is that the weather widget (which is now cached and doesn't need to reload when you swipe back to it's panel) looked much worse than it did before. the aHome Lite version had a classy, subdued hue. And while you can now change the weather background, your choices are limited to blinding bright colors that don't go well with any aHome theme. Yikes. Back to Moxier world. The Battery Monitor widget still looks good though.

The second problem is that my apps menu seems to take longer to load. It's jittery - even after a fresh boot with no background apps. Is that because of the new background? Black looks better anyway, I think. I'm complaining because I'm a fan of the product, and I think the devs made a few mistakes here. Still, the new version adds faster homescreen loading, naming and setting a panel indicator symbol, and prompt for Google voice. Auto-rotate for accelerometer output is fully functional in this version as well, which takes care of Open Home's primary advantage (I'll get to the Open Home Cupcake stuff in my review of that program).

Strengths: Useful widgets; makes more sense than default Android home; I can now export and import all of my aHome settings, which is something the Android team should consider; auto-rotate without sliding the screen; I might actually start using drawers for review apps, instead of *another* panel.

Weaknesses: Blechy widget themes and background/load time for the app library.

Verdict: If aHome is your favorite home replacement, the full version is worth the $4.99. You need to keep an eye on mAPPn as well. They've got some cool stuff coming out for iPhone too. 

Coming into the world as the first priced Twitter client for Android carries with it some inherent expectations. Twidroid has never disappointed me, and the interface is as sleek and professionally crafted as one could hope for. There are options galore, and the app works flawlessly. With this in mind, I went ahead and paid the $2.99 for Loquacious - even though there is a 14-day, fully-functional free trial version in the Market.

In order to compete with an app as powerful and satisfying as Twidroid, the developer of Loquacious, Shaun Kelly, took a different approach. The app's description states that it contains not a trace of turquoise. And yeah, it is kind of a nice change.

Besides the fairly standard Twitter client options of direct message, reply, retweet, follow link, and favorite, Loquacious has a killer filter menu. You can set up filters based on user ID or the source client; i.e., from Web, Twidroid, etc. The latter is an excellent feature, and probably the one thing that could pull me away from Twidroid - but only for viewing. And once you follow enough people, it makes sense to view with one client and tweet with another.

The filters are based on whatever shows up on your account - not a list of current Twitter clients. So, not only will you not need to scroll through a huge list of irrelevant clients, the app will automatically recognize new clients when they are released.

For now, Twidroid is still my favorite. But Loquacious has a lot to offer. A simplified interface, unencumbered tweet list, and perfect filters will probably draw a more than a few converts. It's at least worth checking out the demo. I had to search by name - it didn't show up for me under social apps.

Just a couple days after the iPhone3.0 Beta was released for developers, someone's already cracked it wide open.

Ubergizmo reports that the iPhone Dev Team has jailbroken this latest iPhone update, but hasn't launched it yet. The theory is that they're waiting for the official debut this summer before releasing it into the wild.

What if you've jailbroken AND unlocked your phone? Well, then patience, grasshopper. The team says that the YellowSn0w unlocking software doesn't play nice with the update yet, so you won't want to rush into 3.0 until this wrinkle's been ironed out. Otherwise, you could wind up with some big problems of the irreversible kind. So if you don't want a shiny, expensive paperweight, stay tuned. We'll let you know when the coast is all clear.

We reported on the E71 landing at Cincinnati Bell, however AT&T customers and S60 fans who have waited on the phone for what seems like an eternity can rest easy - it's on the way.  Arriving at AT&T stores across the nation and on track for a March 24th release, the E71x (in a good looking black color, we might add) is rumored to be priced at $199 after mail-in rebate.

Get one?  Have initial impressions?  Let us know!





Source: BGR