"> 1by Roy Alugbue
tagged Android 4.0, blackberry playbook, Chameleon, rim, skins, Teknision, ui
Ice Cream Sandwich is away and by far the best Android OS to date. By including the most fluid UI yet while integrating noteworthy features such as facial unlock and an improved set of widgets for use, ICS makes for a solid experience using the OS and especially UI. As a trademark of Android’s open platform, ICS allows for custom “enhancements” in the form of skins (Sense, TouchWiz, MOTOBLUR, etc.) and style by the various OEM who sell Android-based devices. One thing that’s painfully obvious for many of the “enhancements” done by OEMs is many of the custom skins include well… useless features and poorly designed widgets which tend to actually slow down Android devices despite those same devices having incredible processors and memory.
And that’s exactly why you tend to see many (though not all) Android owners go the way of the ROMing route in order to stick it to OEMs and experience what they feel a solid Android experience. While some folks (like me) prefer their Android in vanilla flavor or others (like many of the writers here at TA) prefer custom ROMs and some ummm, you know— like their resource hogging skins, Canadian developer Teknision is out to re-define how Android skins should be developed. Highlighted in our Forums, the same team behind RIM’s Blackberry Playbook UI has developed not only a intriguing skin for Android 4.0′s homescreen, but a stellar one at that in its Chameleon concept which is for tablets. Hit the break to read more details about what it does and to check out a video to see it in action.
Teknision gets the design of the Chameleon skin right by taking advantage of every aspect of a device’s features. As you can see in the above screenshot, the entire screen is filled up with widgets in order to give you easy and visual access to the items you do most like emailing, your calendar, news feeds and books. This is all done in a sleek and well-designed way too. It’s not meant to be overwhelming too. In fact— the various widgets filling up the screen is meant to improve upon how we use widgets now. Most widgets are not resizeable nor do they effectively present all of our needed information in front of us in an effective way. Chameleon aims to redefine how we use our widgets in our skin.
The Chameleon skin doesn’t stop there either— it’s introduced the instant changing of user profiles on our devices. Let me explain: some of us love our devices enough that we share it with those who may use it often too (husband, wife, children, “friends”, etc.). Chameleon makes clever use of its name by adapting to a user’s surroundings and thanks to the integration of facial recognition technology, a profile associated with a specific user can be activated— all on the fly. That means you can see you can see your different apps and general customizations with your profile, while another can see their own apps and customizations in their own profile when they’re logged in, similar to how its done on a Windows or Mac-based PC. Neat isn’t it?
This sure looks like a mighty good way to convert those of us who generally cringe at the thought of a skin slapped on top of the Android UI. There’s a good bet this will make it out to Android devices VERY soon. Check out the Chameleon skin in action and then hit the source link to head on over to our Forums and show some love by giving the developer your thoughts on how it is or how you think it can be improved.
source: Talk Android Forums
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Categorized as Android Customization, Android News
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