The developer of Fancy Widget earned a bit of fame a while back by launching a Home Screen widget for Google Android that looked almost exactly like the default time and weather widget from HTC Sense. Unfortunately (and predictably) he was asked to stop offering that app, which he did.

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Now he’s back with a new app, also called Fancy Widget. It offers the same basic functionality by offering a combined time and weather widget with support for Celcius and Fahrenheit, configurable refresh intervals, and attractive weather icons. But it’s been redesigned to not look quite so HTC Sense-like.

Aside from using a redesigned digital clock and new weather icons, the new app is also more stable and should work better on a wider range of devices. It also supports sunrise and sunset times and the ability to tap on the widget to launch an application.

Fancy Widget v2 is available as a free download from the Android Market. If you have the old version installed, you will not be prompted to update, since the new version is for all intents and purposes a new app.

Time Magazine has launched an official Android app that lets you access much of the information available on the Time web site on your mobile phone. It’s available as a free download from the Android Market, but for some reason it’s rather difficult to find the official Time app by searching, so you’re best off scanning the barcode to the right with your phone’s camera to go directly to the download page.

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Stories are broken up into sections including Latest, Most Read, Politics, U.S., World, Business, and Photos, to name just a few. There’s also a Videos section with links to Time.com video features.

The stories are formatted for a small screen and the overall user interface is attractive if not always intuitive (sometimes you use an on-screen arrow to go back a page, and sometimes you use your phone’s dedicated back button). You can also hit the Menu key to pull up additional options, allowing you to save a story, adjust the text size, email the link or share it over Twitter or Facebook, or download a story for offline reading.

The offline function is pretty awesome, and it’s something I wish more web-based news apps would add.

The only real problem I’ve found with the Time app is that I think it’s supposed to be ad-supported, but the ads aren’t showing up correctly. Instead, I keep running into a small bar at the bottom of some screens and the top of others that says “web page not available.” I have a feeling it won’t be too long before this problem is fixed.

via OMG Android

Fancy Widget is a home screen widget for Google Android that pretty much duplicates the time and weather widget that ships with HTC Sense UI. So it probably shouldn’t come as any surprise that HTC has complained to the developer.

In response, Fancy Widget 1.2.2 will be the last version of the widget that looks like the HTC Sense widget. It’s still available in the Android Market, but not for long. If you want it, you’d best go and grab it now.

The developer does plan to offer a new version soon with a new look.

Update: The new version of Fancy Widget is now available. It actually looks pretty nice, but it doesn’t look like HTC Sense.

via EuroDroid