Android Theme Ability

[Rob]

What type of access do developers have to modding the UI with various fonts, colors, graphics, options, etc... ? It would be pretty cool if people could very easily customize their phone.

Hey that's an app idea right there. Create an app that will customize the theme for you... select your own font, font sizes, colors, etc... and the app does all the dirty work in the background!

[SerenityNow]

I'm not a developer so I wouldn't know. But, I'm pretty sure that is one of the MOST basic building blocks of Android... to mess around with the UI isn't it? I'm pretty sure there will be tools/apps that let you create your own theme.

If not... where's the dev team? Jump on it!

[irishgandalf]

i like the standard theme (just about) so i'd well be interested in tweaking the theme!

this company has cool ideas!

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=rqvL2lZGxQs

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7ilpFNzz5k&feature=related

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=BRxsxynZV8I&feature=related

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=NHrnuclAt2M&feature=related

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=C3COIvuqeQU&feature=related

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=BhobQcgy4uA&feature=related

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=1GDl2r0RxpE&feature=related

[Rob]

WOW connor thanks for those links... looks pretty SWEET

[irishgandalf]

Np! btw my name is Conor it's the surname that has 2 Ns

[Rob]

Gotchya, apologies... I'll inevitably just be calling you irish or gandalf or igandy or something because the username is what you see all the time.

[irishgandalf]

i've no prob with that at all! i donno why i gave out my name in the first place!

[OrganizedFellow]

ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!

Have you all seen their videos?!
I mean, it's one thing to view them on YouTube, but quite another to view them direct from their site (i went to: http://www.tat.se/conceptlab/). They link to 10 QuickTime video files.
If you have DownThemAll Firefox extension, you can use that!
:)

But check out what was posted on the
Open Handset Allience members page (http://www.openhandsetalliance.com/oha_members.html)
TAT - The Astonishing Tribe AB
www.tat.se
TAT - The Astonishing Tribe - a specialist in mobile user interfaces, recognized for its design capabilities and for its software solutions that enable richer user experiences on any platform, to date embedded in more than 140 million devices.

140 million devices????

[johnkzin]

I very much liked "November Rain" and somewhat liked "River of Photos" or whatever that one was called (I wish you had put the theme names/titles above the movies, instead of relying upon them to be seen within the movie).

The third from the last one didn't have a name/title in the movie, so I don't know what it was called, but I liked it a lot too (everything except the blue sparkling/bubbling pointer). I especially liked that it used an old menu concept I have wanted to see in UI's since the late 1980's -- circular/pie-shaped context menus. (in this case, it looked more like star/snowflake shaped, but still, that's a style representation, it's the same underlying mechanism).

If these are actual android themes that are available, then I think I'm going to be quite happy. But I'm also not sure I'd call these "themes". they're not just coloring/skinning the interface, each one shows a very different actual UI. Themes and skins are just veneers over the same underlying UI. These show a great deal of range and creativity is possible in the UI customization, and I reall like that.

The one thing I really didn't like: the font in the 2nd one from the top. "The quick brown fox" looked to me like "the quick brown Pox" ... not a good mixup. The last thing we want is a pox upon our phones ;-)

Thanks for posting these, though.

[Windchill]

I am curious. I know on blackberrys you would have themes that were locked in the os. You could, if you knew how, go in and unlock these themes. If any of you are familiar with BB's, you know about the Zen theme. Also there was a hidden game that could be unlocked.

Has anyone found anything like this in the OS of the G1 yet?

[sylo88]

arn't those all iphone themes?

[OrganizedFellow]

arn't those all iphone themes?
Which 'those' are you referring to?

[Quirk]

Themes are not out yet? When will themes work?

[meltyblood913]

Yea a new gui or UI would be nice like skins xp and so on
and windblinds and all those theme stuff for windows except for Android OS

[richy240]

I think I saw something over on XDA about skinning Android. Let me see if I can dig up the thread...

:: 1.5 minutes later ::

Found it!

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=444178, which goes on to link http://androidguys.com/?p=2669

[p_quarles]

Thanks for the update, ricky240.

It looks as though that developer was working with a jailbroken phone. I'm hoping there's a less invasive way of skinning the interface figured out sooner rather than later. As I start to encounter more people with my phone, I'd like to be able to change something about it. :D