{"id":577049,"date":"2010-05-19T13:49:51","date_gmt":"2010-05-19T17:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bbgeeks.com\/?p=5491"},"modified":"2010-05-19T13:49:51","modified_gmt":"2010-05-19T17:49:51","slug":"theme-review-wednesday-groovy-ambos-mario","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/577049","title":{"rendered":"Theme Review Wednesday: Groovy, Ambos, Mario"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A while back I asked for submissions from theme developers. I feel like we go back to the same developers in this feature. While that&#8217;s not a bad thing &#8212; we go back to them because they consistently create useful themes &#8212; I also like to vary the pool from which we choose. While there&#8217;s one mainstay featured in today&#8217;s post, we also have something from John Konduros, who emailed me regarding his Groovy theme. We&#8217;ll lead off with that one.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h4>Groovy<\/h4>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bbgeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/groovy.jpg\" style=\"margin-left:10px; margin-top:6px;\" align=\"right\" \/>Because John Konduros is the only developer to email me so far, he gets a spot in the feature. This is definitely not my type of theme. I like psychedelic imagery well enough, just not on my BlackBerry device. Staring at all the colors, and at the off-beat font, just doesn&#8217;t work for my eyes. I know people who would like it, though.<\/p>\n<p>The theme features flower and peace sign meters at the top, with peace being the signal and flower being the battery. Below that it&#8217;s an applications menu, which is as basic as basic can get. The icons set is the basic OS 4.6 one, though one of the screenshots shows icons from circa OS 4.2. I actually think that would have been appropriate, since it&#8217;s another retro feature. All of the text, including menus and message screen, is a typical hippie font, which presents a huge turnoff. I&#8217;ve long stated my preference for simple fonts.<\/p>\n<p>If odd fonts and psychedelic color scheme are your thing, you can <a href=\"http:\/\/appworld.blackberry.com\/webstore\/content\/6186\">get the Groovy theme<\/a> at App World for $4.99. It is compatible with all BlackBerry OS versions.<\/p>\n<h4>Ambos<\/h4>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bbgeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/ambos.jpg\" style=\"margin-right:10px; margin-top:6px;\" align=\"left\" \/>Yes, we&#8217;re going back to Hedone Design. They actually recently <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hedonedesign.com\">redesigned their website<\/a>, and now it features a slick black theme. I&#8217;m not a big fan of reading white on black, nevermind gray on black, but I don&#8217;t exactly go to Hedone Design for the words. It&#8217;s all about the themes and Ambos is the latest.<\/p>\n<p>While you can change the wallpaper of this theme, I definitely enjoy the orange sunburst against the black of my device. The home screen is also largely uncluttered, tucking the time, notifications, and meters in a small bar on the top. Below that sit five static icons. Below that is a drop-down menu that reveals six user-defined icons. You can see a Today Preview on the spacious home screen when you scroll over messages or calendar.<\/p>\n<p>Like most new Hedone themes, this one is compatible with OS 4.6 and above, including both touch and non-touch devices. You can <a href=\"http:\/\/store.bbgeeks.com\/product.asp?id=61983\">get the Ambos theme<\/a> for $6.99.<\/p>\n<h4>Super Mario Brothers v2.0<\/h4>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bbgeeks.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/05\/mario1c.jpg\" style=\"margin-left:10px; margin-top:6px;\" align=\"right\" \/>A little over a year ago I <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbgeeks.com\/blackberry-reviews\/theme-review-wednesdays-sidewinder-no-smoking-super-mario-882211\/\">reviewed a Super Mario Bros. theme<\/a> and came away unimpressed. I love Mario Bros. &#8212; just got a Wii and I not only got the Wii game, but also downloaded the old versions &#8212; but that theme just didn&#8217;t do it for me. There was too much going on with the home screen, and the application menu was just a mess. Thankfully, the good folks at Berry Good Themes have developed an excellent alternative.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s certainly a lot less going on with the home screen of this one. Mario jumps around, but he&#8217;s actually serving a function, bouncing among hidden icons (at least on the non-Storm versions). The theme also features seven fixed icons &#8212; messages, sms, calendar, browser, options, clock, and manage connections &#8212; and also has a hidden Today Preview. The preview sits nicely in the sky portion of the background. The weather slot blends perfectly with the background, though I could have used a cloud koopa popping up. That would have been neat. <\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re looking for a quality video game theme, you can <a href=\"http:\/\/www.berrygoodthemes.co.uk\/page6.htm\">get the Super Mario Bros. theme for $3.98<\/a>. It works on most BlackBerry models running OS 4.5 and above, though it is optimized for OS 5.0. <\/p>\n<p>This post originated at BBGeeks.com &#8211; home to all things <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbgeeks.com\">Blackberry<\/a>! Also a great source of info about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbgeeks.com\/provider-reviews\/att.html\">AT&#038;T BlackBerry<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbgeeks.com\/blackberry-themes\/theme-review-wednesday-groovy-ambos-mario-885491\/\">Theme Review Wednesday: Groovy, Ambos, Mario<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This post originated at BBGeeks.com &#8211; home to all things <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbgeeks.com\">Blackberry<\/a>! Also a great source of info about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbgeeks.com\/provider-reviews\/att.html\">AT&#038;T BlackBerry<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbgeeks.com\/blackberry-themes\/theme-review-wednesday-groovy-ambos-mario-885491\/\">Theme Review Wednesday: Groovy, Ambos, Mario<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/HTgpZwO6fiJIHG-27xbkxcMqnHs\/0\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/HTgpZwO6fiJIHG-27xbkxcMqnHs\/0\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap=\"true\"><\/img><\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/HTgpZwO6fiJIHG-27xbkxcMqnHs\/1\/da\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feedads.g.doubleclick.net\/~a\/HTgpZwO6fiJIHG-27xbkxcMqnHs\/1\/di\" border=\"0\" ismap=\"true\"><\/img><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A while back I asked for submissions from theme developers. I feel like we go back to the same developers in this feature. While that&#8217;s not a bad thing &#8212; we go back to them because they consistently create useful themes &#8212; I also like to vary the pool from which we choose. While there&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":687,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-577049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/687"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577049\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}