Over the weekend, a new WidgetLocker beta was released for users, bringing new lockscreen options and functionality. For starters, users can now have a bezel on both sides of the device, which will allow for the placement of app shortcuts and also a camera shortcut, much like you see on Android 4.2. Shortcuts can be customized, much like everything else in the lockscreen replacement app. 

Nova Launcher and WidgetLocker received updates today to include support for “unread counts” on icons for Gmail, SMS, missed calls, Google Talk, etc. TeslaCoil, the makers of these two, created an app that works with them called TeslaUnread that allows your most commonly used apps to show unread counts from your home screen or lock screen. The app has to be used with either Nova or WidgetLocker in order to work, but it’s free, so you shouldn’t mind having to install it. As you can see in the photo above, it even works with custom icon packs.

Along with the support for TeslaUnread, the Nova update included new gestures, reverse wallpaper scrolling, support for GO Launcher icon packs, and a bunch of other fun things.

Play Links:  Nova Launcher | WidgetLocker | TeslaUnread

WidgetLocker has easily become one of my favorite apps of all time. What once started out as a decent lockscreen replacement with what felt like beta options and settings, is now a full-blown and polished beast. With multiple lockscreen options available directly through the app, you also have a massive theme community to make your lockscreen as customized as you could possibly imagine.

In today’s update, we get the removal of that nasty legacy menu button for ICS devices that do not have a physical menu key (meaning I can finally use it on the One X), the ability to add up to 8 and 6 actions through ICS and Sense lockswitches, additional root options for ICS users, and more.

Play Link ($2.99)

Cheers Paolo!

We use our phones for a huge assortment of tasks during the day and even more throughout a week or even a month. If a phone’s look and operation changed with what activity you were doing, you may just save a ton of time in the long run. Introducing SmartShift Lockscreen, a way to have your phone look and operate based around everyday tasks that you perform. To give an example, say you just sat down in your car and throw your phone into the car dock. The app recognizes this and changes to a user set profile that has your maps, GPS, and navigation all on the lockscreen. At the gym? As soon as you plug in your headset, the device changes to a lockscreen that has all of your multimedia apps right there at your fingers. 

Our long time DL homie, MrPicolas, turned us onto the Ultimate Custom Clock Widget this weekend and we have been hooked ever since. If you are familiar with WidgetLocker, then you will know how this type of deal works. A developer created what you can call a shell of an app that allows the creative minds in this community to express themselves. What I mean by that, is through UCCW, you are able to load custom clock skins from your favorite designers with ease. This is the type of app that designers tend to flock to, as it gives them an outlet to share their styles and influences through tons of Android devices.  

So much for that post this morning about GO Locker when WidgetLocker is dropping bombs like this. In the latest update for the most popular lock screen app on the planet, we get a massive list of new toys. Most notably is the Ice Cream Sandwich lock screen that works flawlessly while making you almost feel like you have the new OS running on your device. Couple it with all of those ICS tweaks we gave you last week and you might actually trick someone into believing it.

Android 4.0 lock screen isn’t the only big time addition here though. How about the Honeycomb and Sense 3.0 screens as well? Or the new clock that you can see featured in my shots above? A new UI interest you? One of the best app updates I have seen in a while. Nice work TeslaCoil team.

Market Link

Cheers someone that I can’t seem to find now!

We’ve featured WidgetLocker on DL a couple of times now, but had yet to really dive into the theming side of this lock screen replacement app.  Then today happened and we stumbled onto an XDA thread that has been compiling beautiful lock screen themes for almost 2 months now.  I’ve featured 3 of them above, but trust me when I say that this doesn’t even touch on the 70+ variations of custom sliders that you can sample from.  For those of you into the minimalistic lifestyle, this would be your goldmine.

Download:  simplismSense | WindowsPhoneMin | MNML Light

*Themes created by qwerty160, dbrits, and zHk3R.

Instructions:

1.  To install these, simply download the file to your phone and move it into:

/data/com.widgetlocker.teslacoilsw/themes

2.  Then from your WidgetLocker lock screen, add a new custom slider.
3.  Choose from the Theme pull down menu.

The rest of the 70+themes can be found at this XDA thread.  FAQ here.

The lock screen is one of the most important parts of a phone; it allows us to see multiple information sets without unlocking our phone. Most importantly, we can see items in our notification bar and the time; other features include being able to mute/unmute the phone without going into the settings menu.

At it’s core, this is all very basic functionality. Clearly, Google believes that the functionality we have is enough, and an average user should be able to get by.

However, what if we want… more? It’s the nature of Android to have a degree of customization over other phones, so why should the lock screen be any different?