The highlight of Holo Launcher Beta 2 is the Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich like UI. The icon sets are replaced and ICS icons are put in place. Transition effects like the Card stack can be activated from the Launcher settings which makes the screen sliding smoother.

Although the app promises to revamp the whole screen, it actually does not do so (or maybe it cannot). Yesterday evening I decided to give a try to this app although I’m not a big fan of custom launchers.

The installation went normally & the UI did change. But some of the icons, the notification bar, etc didn’t change at all. The default styling was retained and only the home screen & app list screen was changed.

Highlights of Holo Launcher

• Infinite Scrolling.
• Custom dock settings.
• Screen Previews (pinch to view).
• Hide icon labels.
• Show/Hide the status & notifications bar.
• Home Screen action.

The Lowlights

So if you are expecting too much out of this app then let me warn you, just don’t. Holo launcher Beta 2, like many other launchers in the Play Store will not completely change the native UI & turn it into the ICS style.

As you can see from the images, some of the icons are ICS styled whereas the rest of them aren’t. Also, the widgets’ styling isn’t changed as well.

Anyway, we should be appreciative of the developer as a lot of hard-work must have gone through in making this app. So give it a try, if you like it keep it else deleting is always an open option.

You can download Holo Launcher Beta 2 app from the download link placed right below this paragraph. It is available as an .apk file for the moment & not on the Play Store.

Download Holo Launcher Beta 2

So did you like Holo Launcher Beta 2 or still looking for a better alternative for Ice Cream Sandwich like UI ?

This article (Holo Launcher Beta 2 – The ICS-Like Launcher for Android) was published by Mani Viswanathan on AndroidGram - Android News, Tutorials & Tricks.

Now Sony Ericsson has released the ICS Beta ROM for one of it’s most popular Xperia models i.e. the Xperia PLAY. We have seen that the gaming smartphone has had an edge over other Xperia models when it comes to app releases and minor os updates.

Before the tutorial starts, I would like to emphasis again that this version of Ice Cream Sandwich for Xperia PLAY is Beta and not a stable final version. Sony Ericsson has released it now so that developers can test it out properly and give a reasonable feedback. The bug fixes will be seen in the final stable version.

So if you don’t know much about unlocking, rooting and changing ROMs then please don’t try it. This ICS Beta ROM will void your operator warranty (as it involves unlocking of your phone).

Install Ice Cream Sandwich Beta ROM on Xperia PLAY

1. First of all go to Settings > About Phone > Software update and check whether you are on the latest stable Android version for Xperia PLAY. The build number should be 4.0.2.A.0.42.
2. Now go to this official unlocker page and follow all the instructions correctly in order to unlock your phone. Don’t look at the number of steps in that page and close the tab (yes, 16 looks a lot).
3. Once you are done with the steps mentioned in the first page click continue and request for the unlock code (in page 2). Only then you’ll be able to install the ICS Beta ROM.
4. Head over to this page; read the instructions, accept it and download the Xperia PLAY Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Beta ROM (Size: 127 MB, .zip file).
5. The real installation process starts now. Extract the zip file to your Android Fastboot directory (Example: android-sdk\fastboot\play-ics).
6. Navigate to the android-sdk\fastboot directory using the command prompt. Use only the drive letter (like E:) to change the drive and cd key to change the directory. So if you are in C:\ then in command prompt you should enter ‘E:’ and then ‘cd android-sdk\fastboot\play-ics’.
7. Once you are in the play-ics fastboot directory use these three commands to flash the ROM.
   

   fastboot flash boot ..\fastboot\play-ics\boot.img
   fastboot flash userdata ..\fastboot\play-ics\userdata.img
   fastboot flash system ..\fastboot\play-ics\system.img

8. Just reboot your phone to complete the installation process. Have some patience when it starts again, normally takes a good couple of minutes after an update.

That’s that. Again let me reiterate that unless you know or have done the installation of ROMs previously don’t take a risk.

What’s not there in this ICS Beta ROM

When you are about to test such Beta ROMs you must expect some important features to be absent. Likewise, Xperia PLAY’s ICS ROM also leaves out some of the key features like:

• Google Mobile Services (GMS) viz – GMail, Google Maps, Face lock and other Google related apps.
• Modem.
• Wi-Fi.
• Bluetooth.

I hope this tutorial helped you in upgrading to Android 4.0 ICS on your Xperia PLAY device. Drop a comment if you face any problem during the installation process. Even though I don’t have an Xperia PLAY I will try to find the solution to your problem(s).

Source: Sony Ericsson Developers blog.

Do you think the release date of Ice Cream Sandwich for Xperia 2011 phones is nearing ? 

This article ([Tutorial] Install ICS Beta ROM on Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY) was published by Mani Viswanathan on AndroidGram - Android News, Tutorials & Tricks.

Since it’s an unofficial update I thought of writing a step-by-step tutorial to get the latest version of the Play Store which obviously has indicated some major improvements.

Before we start with the How To part of it, let’s quickly take a look at the key features introduced in Play Store version 3.5.15.

Key Features

Thankfully the updates or enhancements are pretty visible in this version, so I didn’t have to dig much into the Play Store to find them. Anyways here is a short list of changes you’ll find in the latest version of Google Play Store.

• Swipe-able ‘My Apps’ screen : You can now easily swipe or slide between the Installed & All apps part. The ‘All’ section shows all the apps which you’ve downloaded till date irrespective of whether it’s installed on your phone or not.
• Much better listing of Apps to-be-updated : The segregation of automatic one-click updates & manual updates is pretty clean.
• Review Options : Now when you go to an apps review section (only present in view all) you’ll find an Option on the right hand side which says ‘Latest version only’ & ‘From this type of phone only’. So this is a really impressive addition to the Play Store.

How to Update to Play Store 3.5.15

Now let’s start with the actual tutorial on updating to the newest version of the store.

1. First of all download this Google Play Store 3.5.15 apk file (size : 3.81 mb) on your Android device.
2. Now open up the file and install it like any other app on your phone.
3. You don’t need to uninstall the current version of Play Store for the sake of updating to the latest version. If you do that then all the apps & data will be lost.
4. That’s it, now you can browse through the new Play Store.

This article ([Tutorial] Update to Google Play Store 3.5.15) was published by Mani Viswanathan on AndroidGram - Android News, Tutorials & Tricks.

There are quite a few free apps to do this task but today we will be seeing only three. I’m not going to list the three based on popularity or ratings. The criteria I’ve set for these three torch or flash light apps is that they should offer a home screen widget & should be free (of course).

Hence I’ve excluded the the app – Brightest Flashlight Free™.

1. Tiny Flashlight + LED

The most useful app out of the three we are listing today has to be the Tiny Flashlight + LED app developed by Nikolay Ananiev. It comes with the Morse code, strobe lights, warning lights, screen lights & of course the basic torch light (LED).

The user interface (UI) of Tiny Flashlight is cleanly designed with proper spacing between the icons. The main screen of the app also has a battery indicator which shows the battery level in percentage (%).

Unlike other apps Tiny Flashlight can be turned off right from the sliding status bar located at the top of the screen.

The best part of this app is that it comes with a home screen widget which starts faster than the other torch light apps. So if you ever need your phone to function like a torch then go for this app blindly.

Download

2. Flashlight

Just to clarify, this is not another version of the above app even though the name sounds pretty similar. Flashlight is a completely different app developed by a different developer/team in Intellectual Flame.

Flashlight comes with an elegantly sliding strobe effect. You just have to slide to go to the different level of strobe. The default level is 0 which means your phone’s LED will act as a normal torch. Flashlight doesn’t offer the screen light unlike many other torch apps.

There are 9 strobe levels in total, so use it as and when you require. The UI of this Android app is pretty good, so go for it if you only want the torch-like effect.

Download

3. Flashlight HD LED

This is getting humorous isn’t it ? Three torch-like apps for Android and all have the word Flashlight in it. The logical reason behind this would be that the light comes from the flash part of  your phone.

Flashlight HD LED offers the basic LED light along with colorful screen lights. It is developed by smallte.ch. Surprisingly the size of this app is same as the size of Tiny Flashlight + LED. But to be fair to the app’s developers they’ve included a color wheel from which we can choose the color for the screen light. That does consume considerable space.

I’m not very impressed with the UI of Flashlight HD LED even though it functions pretty well. But we can’t expect everything for free, can we ?

Download

So which torch app would you choose among the three ?

This article (3 Free Android Apps to turn your Phone into a Torch) was published by Mani Viswanathan on AndroidGram - Android News, Tutorials & Tricks.