HTC uses a new lock screen on the HTC Flyer Tablet and HTC Sensation 4G smartphone. There’s a ring at the bottom for the screen that you can pull to unlock your device — but there are also four icons for apps that you can launch by dragging them into that same ring. This lets you launch some apps without first unlocking your device and then finding them on your home screen or app drawer.

Now an independent developer has cloned the new HTC lock screen and brought it to the Android Market as a free app called Agile lock. If you don’t like the ads in the settings menu you can also purchase a paid version for about a buck and a half.

The full version also lets you adjust the font size, style and color and other settings and add widgets to the home screen. But you can use the free or paid versions of Agile lock to choose which icons display on your home screen, set your default music player, or adjust some other settings.

I get the feeling that Agile lock may not be available in the Android Market forever — at least not in its current form. Last year a developer released an app called Fancy Widget that copied the HTC Sense weather and time widget, and he was asked by HTC to remove the app and make some rather dramatic changes to the graphics.

via Android Community

Most smartphones with touchscreens have some sort of a lock screen that requires you to swipe a pattern or enter a passcode before you can start using your phone. This keeps you from accidentally making a phone call, deleting email messages, or topping your high score in Angry Birds if your screen accidentally turns on while your phone is in your pocket.

But it also means it takes a little longer to start using your device since you have to press a power button and make perform some sort of gesture before you see your home screen. On the other hand — why do you need to go to your home screen at all if all you want to do is check the time or peek at your calendar?

Most phones will show you the time at a glance even if you don’t unlock them first. Now if you have an Android phone you can also see some of your upcoming calendar appointments without unlocking your phone.

All you need is a free app called Lockscreen Calendar. It’s available for download from the Android Market.

The first time you run the app you can configure which of your Google calendars you want to display, how many appointments should be shown on the lock screen, and how to show the date.

There are also settings letting you decide how often the app should check for new appointments (measured in hours) and how far ahead it should look for appointments (measured in weeks).

You may not notice any appointments on your lock screen right away unless you click the “update now” button to get things started.

The app is still in beta, and I’ve noticed that while Lockscreen Calendar does a good job of detecting full-day appointments from my calendars it doesn’t seem to notice event scheduled for a specific time. It also doesn’t seem to list today’s appointments, instead showing event starting tomorrow. The developer also acknowledges that he hasn’t found a good way to find and display recurring appointments yet.

Certain devices may also not be able to display appointments on the lock screen including the Samsung Galaxy S and HTC devices with Sense software.

Lockscreen Calendar shows a lot of promise, but it’s still a work in progress. For now though, it’s one of the best ways to get a quick overview of upcoming appointments on your Android phone without much fuss.

Your Android phone or tablet will turn off the display after a certain period of time if you’re not using the device. This is a good thing, because it helps save battery life. But it can also be annoying because the next time you turn on the display you’ll also probably have to swipe to unlock the device. If you’re listening to music and constantly turning on the screen to skip tracks, for instance, you might find yourself hitting the power button and swiping to unlock over and over again in a short period of time.

DelayedLock can save you a lot of frustration. The app tells your phone or tablet not to bring up the lock screen right away. You can choose  custom time between 1 minute and 5 hours. During that time all you have to do is hit the power button on your phone and you can bypass the lock screen.

There are also a ton of customization options. For instance, you can disable the lock screen when you’re using Bluetooth or WiFi, or based on your location or have your phone vibrate when the lock screen is activated.

DelayedLock is available from the Android Market for $1.44, but it doesn’t work on every device so you should probably check out the free trial version first.

via Lifehacker

Amazon has launched updated versions of its Appstore for Android and its Amazon MP3 app for Android. The latest version of the Appstore brings a series of bug fixes, and if you have the Appstore installed on your device you should be prompted to update automatically.

The latest Amazon MP3 app for Android brings a couple of  interesting changes. The most noticeable change is probably the fact that you can now control music playback from your Android lock screen.

Amazon MP3 also now remembers the last playing song after the app or device goes to sleep, supports skipping back to the previous song using Bluetooth controls, and supports using preset equalizers on Google Android 2.3 and up.

Amazon has also fixed issues affecting the Motorola XOOM and devices running CyanogenMod 7. That’s right, Amazon actually cares about people using a custom ROM on their phones or tablets. That’s pretty awesome.

Amazon MP3 is available as a free download from the Android Market. You can download the Amazon Appstore from Amazon.com.

The developers behind the Songbird music player have released an updated version that adds support for tablets running Google Android 3.0. But there are also improvements fro smartphone users including better support for Bluetooth headsets, improved widget stability, and the ability to hear audible notifications even when music is playing.

The lock screen widget lets you play or pause music or skip tracks without first swiping to unlock your phone, which is kind of nice. What’s less nice is the fact that it essentially means you have two lock screens when you’re using Songbird to play music. That’s because it doesn’t replace your default lock screen. It just rests on top of it. So when you hit the power button on your phone, you see a music widget. You can swipe down to make it go away, but then you still have to swipe to finish unlocking your phone.

Fortunately if you don’t like the lock screen widget, you can turn it off and just take advantage of the stability improvements in Songbird 1.1. The app is available as a free download from the Android Market.

Update: There’s a new version of Songbird which lets you unlock your phone with the same swipe as you use to dismiss the music lock screen widget.

via Download Squad

In order to do pretty much anything on an Android phone, you need to hit the power button and then slide your finger across the unlock button in order to get to the home screen. That is, unless you install FlyScreen, an application that lets you add widgets to the lock screen. Then all you have to do is hit the power button to interact with weather, email, social networking, or news apps.

The idea behind the lock screen for touchscreen devices like the iPhone and most Android phones, is that you could accidentally trigger actions by sticking the phone in your pocket and letting it jostle around if there wasn’t some sort of unlocking mechanism in place. But the default Android unlock screen doesn’t give you a lot of information. You get the time and date, and that’s about it.

FlyScreen lets you customize the home screen with interactive widgets including calendar, email, music, news, weather, and social widgets. You can pick and choose from the list of available content or you can add pretty much any RSS feed. The social category lets you see your Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, or Google Reader information.

In order to keep you from triggering actions accidentally, you can’t just click on an item like an email to read it. You’ll need to perform a swiping motion to unlock that action — which may leave you wondering why you would want to install FlyScreen in the first place. But the program does give you at-a-glance information on your home screen, letting you check the weather, look at your calendar, or perform other actions just by tapping the power button once and then putting your phone back into your pocket.

FlyScreen is available as a free download from the Android Market, or you can grab it from the FlyScreen web site.

via TechCrunch