What’s with us and our obsession with keyboards lately?  If only I could explain it.  I’m thinking it has to do with the fact that people are starting to take the best keyboards on the planet and make them even more fabulous than they already were with custom looks.  First we had custom HTC IME skins and now we’ve got a handful of Swype looks…which ones are you digging the most?

While those HTC IME custom keyboards are incredibly sexy, it’s pretty hard for me to not pick Swype in this category. It has changed the way the texting game is played. There was a time when the physical keyboard on my Moto Droid was held in the highest regard, but I can officially say that he’s been swapped out for some Swype-age.

Thoughts?  If you chose “Other” please fill me in!

The HTC Desire has been rooted.  (Yay!)  Why should any of you care?  Because it’s running essentially the same OS as the Droid Incredible which launches tomorrow to the world.  Maybe we’ll be able to knock that SenseUI off it even earlier than anticipated!

Does this news change your stance on possibly upgrading?

Source: Modaco
Via: Android Central

Cheers Tim!

For all of the bloggers out there working with an Android device, DroidAnalytics will hand Google Analytics to you on the go.  We’re talkin’ pretty fully featured Analytics too:  charts, stats by day/week/month, browser and OS info, etc.  It seriously does it all.  With that said, it does have a mini-price tag slapped on it.

Price is 0.99 Euros which turns into about a $1.30 USD.

Download…

Download Link

Sorry to go double custom keyboards on you this week, but these just couldn’t wait any longer…

The creator behind the HTC_IME theme for Swype that was posted last week is back for more with a whole lineup of color-themed awesomeness.  And while the previous theme we posted was for rooted users only, these new themes are for everyone.  That’s right, everyone with a Motorola Droid can install these.

Instructions…

1.  Download one of the following themes to your SD card and unzip:

Download: Black with Blue Theme

Download: Black with Green Theme

Download: Black with Red Theme

Download: Black with Gold Theme

2.  Uninstall any previous versions of Swype.
3.  Open the apk that you just downloaded and install.
4.  Go into Settings>Language & keyboard> and make sure Swype is checked.
5.  Calibrate if needed.
6.  Open a text field, long press, select “input method” and then select Swype.
7.  Enjoy!

*Note 1* – For those of you who had previously installed the HTC_IME theme, you will need to remove the Swype apk from your system>app folder before you can complete these instructions.

And remember that the stock Swype is always available through our downloads page.

Pretty cool right?  Let us know if you run into any issues!

Cheers Tony (sh0ebox) for putting these together!  Amazing work.

If the side-by-side spec sheet of the Motorola Droid vs. the Droid Incredible wasn’t enough for you, Wirefly has put together a video “schmackdown” between the two.  Check it…

Source: Wirefly

The pre-pre-pre-pre-alpha of Firefox Mobile (Fennec) was released last night from one of Mozilla’s developers and is worth playing with as long as you aren’t expecting much.  You should essentially install this just to get a general idea of where Firefox Mobile is headed.

I actually like the functionality of the app, but that doesn’t mean this thing is anywhere near being polished enough to be release to the world.  You’ll find no multi-touch, no way to zoom out, and extreme slowness.  Still, give it a whirl.

Vlad, the dev who released this, provided a list of notes which are worth reading…

• We’ve only really tested this on the Motorola Droid and the Nexus One.
• It will likely not eat your phone, but bugs might cause your phone to stop responding, requiring a reboot.
• Memory usage of this build isn’t great — in many ways it’s a debug build, and we haven’t really done a lot of optimization yet. This could cause some problems with large pages, especially on low memory devices like the Droid.
• You’ll see the app exit and relaunch on first start, as well as on add-on installs; this is a quirk of our install process, and we’re working to get rid of it.
• You can’t open links from other apps using Fennec; we should have this for the next build.

Download: Fennec-Android

Install the .apk file as you would any other app.

Gallery:

Source:  Vlad Vukicevic

Cheers to everyone who sent this in!

We asked you this same question almost 2 months ago.  Can you believe it has been that long?  Back then, this site was still pretty new and had almost no idea what rooting truly meant all while leaning on our few reader experts for help.  Actually, that was almost pre-rooting days when we had 2-3 custom ROMs to choose from, no way to return to stock, and all kinds of bugs. Yuck.  

Glad to see we’ve come as far as we have today, but you know that it’s time for us to ask one more time to see if the audience has shifted or remained the same. We’re in this for the long haul and are trying our best to evolve along with you…

As always, feel free to share the reason(s) behind your answer.