‘Open Home – Full’ A nice home app rich in design

Better Android Open Home - Full $3,99

Download from Android Market

Not only does the app ‘Open Home – Full’ change the functionality of your home screen, it can also change the design of your home screen with over 500 exclusive skins (separate download).

To change the home screen, just load the app. The app name in the list is ‘Open Home’ and not ‘Open Home – Full’.

The look of your home screen changes completely when you load this app.

The weather widget ‘Open Home Weather’ and analog clock are the default widgets of this app. The app also has other original widgets besides ‘Open Home Weather’. The best part is that if you don’t like the widgets (or prefer the older ones), you can keep using the widgets of the previous home app (Something a lot of home apps don’t allow you to do!).

Next, let us have a look at the home screen. The status bar is the same as before (displays missed calls, battery percentage icon etc.)

The bottom half of the screen
The icons displayed on both sides of the screen both have different functions. The icon on the left is for quick search. Slide the star icon on the other side to the left for shortcuts to apps you use frequently. To add shortcuts, first long tap on the app icon to move it to home screen and then drag it to the shortcut list. In case of multiple apps, just slide the panel left/right to access apps. The shortcut panel is always displayed at the same place even if the screen is changed.

The icon on the extreme left at the bottom is the phone icon whereas the globe icon on the right is for the browser. The percentage figure alongside it is the battery remaining. Slide the center icon upwards to see the app list.

With ‘Open Home – Full’, you have space for 5 app icons in a row instead of the default 4 on the app list screen. The extra space has been used to accommodate an extra icon which makes it neat and bigger.

Change the number of screens
Choose from 3 patterns for number of screens – 3, 5 and 7. To set screens, tap on ‘Menu’, ‘More’ and ‘Open Home Settings’. Tap on ‘Number of screens’ to change to the number you want to. You can also set the main screen and display/hide the shortcut icons from here.

Checking ‘Experimental:Cube transition’ at the top change screens in the form of blocks.

Choose from over 500 skins
Not only does ‘Open Home – Full’ has increased functionality, it can also completely transform the look of your home screen. There are 2 ways to do this, skins (changes the look of your screen) and icons (changes app icon design only). These can be set from ‘Open Home – Full’ settings screen.

Setting skins
The 500 skins are not pre-installed in ‘Open Home – Full’. Tap on ‘Skins’ and on ‘Download Skins from App Market’ to download your favorite skins. Both paid as well as free skins are displayed in the list. There are quite a few skins available here and I have included shots of some popular (and free) skins below.

Besides ‘Open Home’ skins you can also set ‘aHome’ skins from ‘Other Themes’. With over 3000 themes available in ‘aHome’, there is a lot to choose from!

Icon settings
Change icons by tapping on ‘download icon packs from App Market’. Choose from over 250 cool icon packs. You can check out the screen-shots of a few icons below.

In addition to the above, you can also kill tasks and take screen shot of home screen from ‘Open Home – Full’ settings. Use this app to create your very own, unique home screen!