SlideScreen Pro Android Application: Review

SlideScreen is developed by Larva Labs in cooperation with Ideas on Purpose. It comes equipped with amazing interface and Recordoid Dictaphone, which create a both functionally and visually excellent and fluent user interface, setting a good example for other Android developers to pursue.

The download  for RC1 takes only 1 MB to complete, which indicates that it is not a big application though not a small one, too. Upon the first start-up the user is presented with a succession of setup screens and a EULA. The setup screens may be skipped in order to be set later.

Following the setup screen is that of the home one, where sections are sorted in bars, the top four of which contain personal data like Emails, Calendar, Calls and Messages. The middle, Sliding Info Bar contains such useful information as time and date, signal network and strength, weather and battery related information. The lower bar is the general information one, containing Twitter, Stocks and Google Reader.

The different functions of the phone may be accessed from the standard view by tapping the icon on the right side of every single bar. For instance, tapping the icons next to Calls will summon the phone’s main dialer application, the same way as the Messages icon will summon message application and the Emails one - that of Gmail application, and thus through all the rest of the multiple information types in the bars.

Removing an item from the list is likewise very simple: just keep it pressed for a while then slide the item to the right or left of the screen as if wishing to flick it off, and the selected item will be removed from your list.

What makes this application especially interesting is the option of two modes it may be run in: the Home Screen Replacement Mode and the Application Mode. There is not much difference between these two modes and those found only when activating the “home” or “back” functions. Thus, clicking “home” when in Application mode will bring back the standard home screen, with SlideScreen remaining open in the background like in case of any other standard Android application. And the “back” button carries back to the home screen closing the application. Whereas in the Home Screen Replacement Mode it is the SlideScreen that appears as the standard home screen with “back” and “home” options performing no action.

And, finally, the settings page of the SlideScreen is a typical Android OS setting page, easy to learn and navigate.