Sunday, May 27, 2012

Chameleon KickStarter Could Bring the Ultimate Customization to Your Android Tablet?s Home Screen

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Image courtesy of KickStarter/Teknision

One of my favorite things about the Android platform is the ability to customize the UI to fit your needs. There are literally hundreds of theme engines and thousand of themes to pick from, as well as thousands of widgets, live applications, and media feeds. I was browsing Kickstarter the other day when I came across Canadian group looking to raise $50K to get another Android home screen engine going. I looked a little deeper and soon realized that this was not quite the same as the other home screen managers that are currently available. This was so intriguing to me, that I was happy to throw down $10 in hopes that the project might actually get off the ground.

When tablets first came out, I really did not see a dying need to have one. Basically until then I used a laptop while on travel and used an MP3/Media player for music and movies on the go. They were pretty much a novelty for me until I got my hands on the original 7? Galaxy Tab. I found that in time it was my staple entertainment for travel, and it could be used almost as a dashboard for daily activities while at work and even at home.

With the larger real estate (compared to even the largest phone screens), you can put everything right in front of you on the home screen. Email, Calendar, Twitter/FB, Stocks, RSS, etc ; they can all be strategically placed right on the opening screen without the need to rifle through individual apps or cycle through different screens. As you probably know, the market is already flooded with these UI enhancements, and most apps come with some sort of widget. But until I saw Chameleon on Kickstarter, I never knew how perfect a home screen setup you could really have.

Image courtesy of KickStarter/Teknision

Chameleon is probably one of the coolest screen managers I have ever seen. With the ability to customize almost every single inch of screen real estate to your liking is something I would be very interested in using. So far over 3100 other backers think the same but if they don?t raise an additional $20K within the next 20 days then it?s looking like a good concept that never hit reality. To set it apart from similar software the focus was on both the productivity aspect, as well as making it look as aesthetically pleasing. From the looks of it so far, I think they have achieved that goal. However, it?s very unlikely to see the light of day if they don?t raise that last chunk of money.

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Images courtesy of KickStarter/Teknision

Features

? Time and location-based settings. Change your configuration automatically depending on where you are located and what time of day it is.

Chameleon Home Screens can be set up based on GPS locations, WiFi networks and time ranges, allowing you to define which Home Screen is the most relevant for the situation. Patent Pending

? Widgets Galore. Calendar, Facebook , Twitter, Nextflix, Instagram, Google Drive, Gmail, Clock, and many more
? Customized App Tray
? Gesture based layout. A grid based system that allows you to very easily change the layout.

Image courtesy of KickStarter/Teknision

What?s In It for You

Here are the perks offered by Teknision for depending on your donation:

$1 gets you the a big ?thanks? and probably some email updates of the project
$5+ you app before it hits the Google Play shelves
$10+ you the above plus a custom designed wallpaper pack
$50+ you get the above plus a ?backer? Chameleon T-shirt
$1000+ you get the above plus a 40? X 40? DNA11 custom painting
$5000+ gets the above, plus a Galaxy Tab with Chameleon pre-installed. No one has yet to take this route, which is understandable. $5K for a piece of software might be a bit much.

So whether you are unsure you need this or just a little interested, every little bit helps. Just to clarify, you?ll need a Honeycomb or newer device to run this, AND it has to be a resolution of 1280 X 800 or higher. I know, it?s a deal breaker for us early 7? adopters!

More devices are now hitting the higher than 1024 X 600 mark, so it should not be an issue for the newer generation tabs to hit those requirements. I hope that I get to run Chameleon on a device this year; I would love to add even more customization to my home screen than I already have now. If all goes well, we should see something hit our inboxes by August 2012. Hurry up though; if you are going to donate, time is short!

via KickStarter?, Developement?Teknision

Tags: Android Apps, Android Phones and Tablets, Kickstarter

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