Things have been quiet around here for a couple of days because I have been extremely preoccupied with my newly upgraded HTC Hero. Here are some random notes from the days that followed.

Trigger the O.T.A update.
Early last week when I got a notification on the phone that a Firmware Over-The-Air (FOTA) upgrade was available. I was on a train with flaky and fluctuating download speeds so I cancelled it. When I got back home, I realised I could not trigger the update on-demand. D’oh! After some Googling, I discovered a way — set the phone’s date to next year and the update gets triggered.

Protip: Don’t forget to set your phone’s clock back to the present time.

Cupcake to Éclair.
The jump from Android 1.5 (Cupcake) to 2.1 (Éclair) was smooth. (Of course, I could have updated long ago if I found the time and focus to root the phone, but I digress…) The biggest disappointment with the firmware upgrade was that the pretty awesome Slidescreen home screen was not able to pull in my calendar updates.

Android home screen and launcher replacements.
Until Larva Labs issues an update, I thought I’d have a go at the other free home screen replacement apps on the market that would work on my stock phone.

• Home++ has a neat ‘Power Strip’ at the bottom and was snappy to use overall. The Power Strip has an all white colour theme, except for the battery charge indicator which was in some default green on my phone. Not very pretty.
• SweeterHome2 was touted as being very customisable but it was painful to learn to to do so. There was no single ‘killer’ feature that made me gawp and want to use it. Maybe I just didn’t get it or didn’t have the patience so I uninstalled it after one reboot.
• HelixLauncher2 and Zeam were both faster than I expected. I immediately liked HelixLauncher2 a lot but it made my battery very hot. You could drag and drop apps to the application launcher to uninstall them which is very neat. But the battery heat was about 38°C most of the time and I literally could not handle it. It’s still on my app list and when there’s an update, I’ll give it a spin again. Zeam felt equally fast and lets you have up to 9(!) home screens. Zeam’s application launcher was on the bottom right, but that’s just a matter of getting used to. Both HelixLauncher2 and Zeam let you ‘pin’ four applications alongside the application launcher (i.e dock) — a very handy feature indeed.
• The ADW Launcher has an insane number of options to tweak the interface and, despite the animations, it is pretty fast. This was the last launcher app that I tried and felt most comfortable with. It lets you pin two apps to the ‘dock’ which felt like the right number. It also can launch programs when you swipe up or down. I spent an inordinate amount of time playing with the insane number of options and it’s hard to believe this program was built and is being maintained almost entirely by one man for free.

There are 32 countries in Asia, not one.
Seriously, Google needs to hurry the fuck up and allow more countries access to the paid apps on the Android Market. In Asia, I believe only Japan has access to paid apps. There are some sparkling gems out there within the realm of the free apps space, some of which are ad-supported but most of the better quality stuff is not free. There are a fair number of apps I would gladly fork money out for, but until Google gets it’s payment issues sorted out, the pro developers will avoid Android.

SlideScreen is a home screen replacement for mobiles and handsets running on Android. After being pretty used to HTC’s Sense UI on my (still unrooted) HTC Hero, I downloaded SlideScreen just for the fun of it.

I was completely blown away. SlideScreen is beautifully designed, with a restrained aesthetic and succinct information display. In fact, it is one of those rare Android apps that is slick and functional at the same time. No surprise then that the creators, Larva Labs, also make iPhone apps.

SlideScreen is being continually developed and I can’t recommend it enough to anyone with an Android handset. It is a great example of why I think Android can go far with quality developers in an open ecosystem. You will never see a re-imagined interface on something as tightly controlled as the iPhone unless it’s jailbroken.

My only frustration has nothing to do with the app itself: I can’t buy the Pro version (which is reasonably priced at US$7) because paid apps on the Android Market are not available in Singapore yet.

The rejuvenation of hip hop has begun with the incredible talent of Janelle Monáe. I don’t know about you, but I really cannot remember the last time a female hip hop star kept most of her clothes on and made a good concept album.

Looks like the browser wars are upon us again. With the introduction of Google’s Chrome browser to the party, I cannot wait to see how the loyalty of Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera users will be tested (and I include myself in there). The IHT has a good write-up on how Google doesn’t actually have to win this browser war to cause Microsoft to wobble.

And yeah, I am convinced Chrome is going to be the killer app for Android. In fact, since it’s WebKit powered, it could be ported to the iPhone someday, somehow.