Flyscreen for Android review
Application: Flyscreen
Price: Free
More Information: Website, Twitter
Market Description:
FlyScreen’s fast. Embed your twitter, facebook, news, weather, sports- your favourite web services, right onto your lock screen! Get zero click access to the content you love most! Much faster than always opening a separate app or browser.
Initial Thoughts:
Still being on the quest to find the perfect app, widget, or combination to keep track of all my information. It seems that with a quick Googling, FlyScreen has been covered a lot in the past. However, it’s definitely a good enough application to need some more attention.
FlyScreen has the feeling of a home replacement, without actually being that. It’s setup to allow you with multiple widget-enabled desktops, and it has an extensive widget gallery at its disposal. Not only can you add standard Android widgets, it has widgets for RSS, Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, weather, calendar, and much more. The way this differs from a home replacement is it’s actually a lock screen replacement. Hit the power button on your phone to wake it up and there is your first widget. Scroll left or right to get more. However, when you go to interact with the widgets beyond reading, you’ll need to “smile to unlock” FlyScreen. This prevents you from being able to pocket update Facebook, for example.
Pros:
- Support for standard Android widgets
- PIM widgets for calendar and SMS
- Social networking widgets for Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, and Foursquare
- News widgets for finance, news, entertainment, sports, and custom RSS
Cons:
- Some obvious widgets missing, but the support for standard Android widget makes up for it
- No social/PIM overview widget
Final Thoughts:
FlyScreen is a pretty clever setup. It helps to free up some launcher real estate and puts a wealth of information at your fingertips. It’s great to be able to put nearly any widget right on my lock screen. For me, it doesn’t put nearly enough data at my fingertips at once. I want to see if I have new E-mail items, articles to read in my Google Reader, know if I have new texts, and see any upcoming appointments all on one screen. However, if your normal desktop is full of widgets, and you find that you just don’t have enough room, this application just might be for you.
Additional Screenshots:
Reader Comments
I want to like Flyscreen more then I do. The on Widget per screen is the major disappointment for me. I was hoping for something where I could view small chunks of information from several sources to gauge the value of going to the next step of unlocking my Droid. Having to swipe multiple times defeats the purpose.
My final analysis: A five star concept with a three star execution.
Posted by Ted Newkumet on Jul 1, 2010 | Thu | 14:05 IST
I'm very much in agreement. While I can see how some would love it, it just didn't accomplish what I was looking for.
Have you found any application that does what you're looking for?
Posted by Steven Brady on Jul 2, 2010 | Fri | 00:54 IST
[...] Flyscreen for Android review [...]
Posted by Facez, the scrollable Facebook widget | Android on Nov 30, 2010 | Tue | 00:29 IST