0 Android Customization: Making It Yours

See all 3 photos Vanilla Android 2.3 homescreen.

One of the things that distinguishes Android is its vast flexibility. Whereas with other phones, and iPhones especially, you need to fiddle around with the software, jailbreak, hack - with Android you can make your phone just the way you like it and make it your very own. No two Android phones need to have screens that look remotely the same: there are even themes and apps that let you mimic the looks of iPhones and Windows Phone 7 if you want to!

You will need these to start with.

1. Custom launcher
2. Various widgets
3. Custom lockscreen
4. Wallpaper Set & Save (to automatically fit an image as a wallpaper without you needing to crop/resize it)

Custome Launcher/Home Replacement

The bread and butter of this process. Android allows you to replace almost everything that comes with the standard software package: you can change the keyboard, use a third-party browser, or replace the Android launcher with something else entirely. What's the launcher? It's the app through which you interact with your phone - where you launch other apps and place shortcuts. It's just like the desktop on your PC or laptop only smaller.

Pictured above is what Android 2.3 generally looks like out of the box. Now look down and you will see homescreens that look completely different - so much so that you can be forgiven if you think they aren't even running Android! They are a result of thorough user customization, each owner making the phone exactly tailored to their specific uses.

See all 3 photos Various Android homescreen designs.
See all 3 photos Launcher 7 for Android

How do you do this? The first thing you will need is a custom launcher, made by third-party developers. Here are some of the most prominent and high-quality ones.

• ADW EX Launcher - paid ($3). One of the older, most innovative and highly flexible launchers, with more options than you can shake a stick at and a huge variety of themes.
• Launcher Pro Plus - paid ($3.5). Polished, with a set of its own widgets for calendar, agenda, contacts and facebook, plus options for transition animations.
• SPB Shell 3D - paid ($15). The priciest of them all, this distinguishes itself with flashy 3D effects and animations.
• HeLauncher - free. Shares many features with ADW EX and Launcher Pro, with the extra option of mimicking proprietary interfaces by HTC, Samsung, and Motorola.
• GO Launcher EX - free. Good range of features and themes.
• Launcher 7 - free. One of the many launchers that mimic the elegant "Metro UI" tiles of Windows Phone 7 but, in true Android fashion, offers more customization than the real thing and retains the flexibility of Android.

Widgets

Now that you have picked your launcher, it's time to look for widgets to go with it. What are widgets? They are mini-apps that allow for something close to multi-tasking on a desktop, presenting nuggets of information at a glance without making you launch an app. The ones that are best for customization are:

• Desktop Visualizer - make your own widgets! This app lets you turn any image file into a widget, and let you choose what to launch from the image.
• Minimalistic Text - text widget: any text. Put whatever message you like onto your homescreen, or have an elegant text-based presentation of battery percentage, weather, time and date.

You will probably want to look into battery, weather/time, and media widgets too, like:

• Pure Music Widget - flexible themeable widgets for your music player.
• Beautiful Widgets - highly customizable, themeable widgets for time/date and weather.
• Colorize Widget - a widget suite with calendar, agenda, facebook, twitter timeline widgets and more.

Once you have picked out widgets you fancy, it might be a good idea to try out a custom lockscreen too: WidgetLocker is the one that lets you freely turn your lockscreen into another homescreen, allowing you to customize it freely so you can add any widgets you want onto it.

Looking for more information on Android?

• Traveling with Your iPad, Smartphone, or Tablet
  
• iPhones vs Android: Why Android is Just Flat Out Better