Homescreen Evolution

Since I had a lot of free time since I resigned mid December last year my Galaxy S3's homescreen has gone through some pretty interesting changes. I can't say that all of them are cool and the it gets better incrementally - you be the judge to that. What I do know is that I've been having fun customizing my homescreen so far. :)

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First Homescreen:

My first attempt at customizing my homescreen was very vanilla, in a sense. First, I changed my home launcher to Nova Prime Launcher (app given to me by +Kirk Andrew Monasterial since he already bought the app). I did some minor modifications, most of which stem mostly from the launcher end (i.e. number of screens, number of rows and columns, default icon pack used). The layout was based from a homescreen I saw in MyColorScreen.

Wallpaper: Cool Wallpapers HD
Launcher: Nova Prime Launcher
Icon Pack: iDear Theme
Widgets: One More Clock Widget
Another homescreen that I created along with the one above is my HTC Desire S' homescreen. Inspiration for the design came from the Ubuntu, which has the applications on the left side. To make the app list scrollable I used Folder Organizer, and adjusted the rows and columns to make it look more pretty.
Wallpaper: Cool Wallpapers HD
Launcher: Nova Prime Launcher
Icon Pack: iDear Theme
Widgets: One More Clock Widget, Folder Organizer (Using the free version doesn't allow you to sort the icons)

Second Homescreen:

The second homescreen wasn't that different from the first one as it utilized the same widget. However, the ratio of the rows and columns was adjusted to even out the spaces in between icons. Additionally, the App Drawer icon (which is located in the intersection of the icon grid) was changed to fit more with the icon pack used.

Wallpaper: Cool Wallpapers HD
Launcher: Nova Prime Launcher
Icon Pack: iDear Theme
Widgets: One More Clock Widget

Third Homescreen:

The third homescreen was one of the drastic homescreen changes I've done. It didn't feature any icon themes, but I did use another set of icons for the App Drawer. The homescreen consisted of three widgets - one contains the clock and weather, the other is the calendar, and the third is a simple text widget that has a link to the Messages, Phone Log, and the App Drawer. All Widgets were created via UCCW. The biggest challenge for this homescreen is making the circular pattern in the wallpaper fit perfectly with the circular clock series widget. It took me a while to actually get it right, and I can't seem to replicate it since. This is also the first homescreen not to sport the notification bar, relying on gestures to display it.

Wallpaper: Cool Wallpapers HD
Launcher: Nova Prime Launcher
Icon Pack: DCIconz Icon Pack
Widgets: created via UCCW

Fourth Homescreen:

The fourth homescreen went back to first wallpaper as background design. It also has two widgets - one which has the common shortcuts I use (email, dialer, camera, etc), while the other one shows the clock/calendar. I created the clock/calendar widget based from One More Clock Widget . Same as the third iteration, I removed the notification bar from the home screen (which can be viewed via a gesture)

Wallpaper: Cool Wallpapers HD
Launcher: Nova Prime Launcher
Icon Pack: DCIconz Icon Pack
Widgets: created via UCCW

Fifth Homescreen:

The fifth homescreen was by far the most tedious homescreen I've done. It used the same wallpaper from the previous one (although cropped differently). I had to edit the wallpaper in photoshop so that I could get the exact dimensions for the phone. I also created a psd file for the application icons (which was separate from the background). I used ICD Plates HD as a base for the app icons, then added my own tweak to create my own hotspot (all created using PS - base PSD file can be viewed here). I then set it up in UCCW - one for each icon (this is where the tediousness came in). There were some minor tweak added to it later on (i.e. modified the number of rows/columns for the home screen), also when adding a new app icon (i.e. added Tweetdeck, and then later Plume).

Wallpaper: Cool Wallpapers HD (modified using PS)
Launcher: Nova Prime Launcher (10x6 grid)
Icon Pack: DCIconz Icon Pack (for App Drawer), ICS Plates HD (base for home screen icons)
Widgets: created via UCCW

Current Homescreen:

My current homescreen is sporting the same set of icons (for the simple reason that I can't think of a layout for them yet). I did change the background (from the more common wallpaper I was using to the Megaman wallpaper as seen below). I created the clock/calendar widget using Minimalist Text, while I used UCCW to create the battery percentage that looks like a barcode (I opted to use UCCW as Minimalist Text adds a ">" when the phone is charging).

My current homescreen is far from complete. It is currently a hybrid of the previous iteration and what I envision to create (so maybe we can call it 5.5 or 5S? lol).

Wallpaper: Cool Wallpapers HD
Launcher: Nova Prime Launcher (10x6 grid, enable overlapping widgets)
Icon Pack: DCIconz Icon Pack (for App Drawer), ICS Plates HD (base for home screen icons)
Widgets: created via UCCW and Minimalist Text


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One of Android's strength is it's customizability, enabling users to customize almost any aspect of their phone as they see fit. This is something that I haven't really delved on for the past year and a half I've been using an Android phone (from my HTC Desire S), but after discovering homescreen customization it became sort of a hobby. It's always the question of how I can improve my homescreen. For sure there's still a lot for me to explore, such as multiple screen setups.

Are you using an Android? Have you done any homescreen customizations for your phone? I'd like to hear about it in the comments section. :)