Over the past few days I've been checking out Hedone Designs latest theme on my 9700. FAON, has grown on me in that time. At first I thought it rather basic but after using it I realized the basic yet, functional layout just worked for me. If you're not a fan of transitions though, be advised FAON does have them built in.
Aside from the four predefined icons shown, you get to select 6 user defined icons for the center which for me anyways, meant never having to really leave my main screen to get at all I needed. You can check out all the screenshots of FAON and decide for yourself if this is a fit for you. As well, when you use the coupon code FAON10 you'll get 10% off the $6.99 purchase price until April 2nd. Check it out and share your thoughts in the comments.
Reader comments
FAON - A Super Clean Premium Theme Hedone Design
Can you make it black? I personally love it if would have been blacked out.. Seems to match with the chromes.
Thanks.
One can you make the wheel move a bit smoother mabe spin when you flick it? Idk. 2 press and hold BB button, open apps are blacked out.
FAON will be updated shortly... some of you had problem with predefined BROWSER icon on home screen. so we'll do this icon as a slot u can define. that way java problem is eliminated. and you will just need to put browser icon on position 7.
more information will be available when update is out.
thanx for letting us know about this problem. i would just ask you to let us know what carrier are you (with this problem) with so we can report this bug.
“Faon” – The name sounds like some strange, foreign, powerful (yet, somehow sexy and strangely attractive) ancient (and potentially EEEEVIL – say it out loud with me – EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL) GOD, and you need to make sure you say GOD as that you are wielding a scepter (with a huge stone –and let’s not forget LOTS AND LOTS OF SKULLS – who doesn’t LOVE skulls – carved into it). But… It means “Fawn” or “Faune” (the mythical creature, who sadly, doesn’t have that previously mentioned scepter…or…even MORE sadly…the skulls…I like skulls…), I suppose, it could mean “я злейший кальмар,” which, as you know, is Russian for “I am an evil squid” (that is for my Slovenian friend and that, unfortunately, is the closest *I* can come to speaking Slovenian). But… I digress… Ahahaha!
Back to FAON THE TERRIBLE! (If any of you have read my writings before, you should NOT be at all surprised that I write this crap, so don’t look so shocked…yes, I can see you…and that awful outfit…)
Looking at it when I first installed I thought – what the *hell* am I supposed to do with THIS? TRUST ME – it’s not nearly as complicated as it looks (keep in mind that I have the mechanical aptitude of a jellyfish, which as you know, generally, don’t work as mechanics, FYI) and less patience than a brown bear (I am from Alaska – I know this).
“It will be difficult to find a similar theme on the market” is an understatement. “Elicite” is the *ONLY* other theme designer of this caliber (keep in mind, *with* Hedone, this makes TWO thus far – I am not saying that others are untalented, but Hedone and Elicite are the “standard by which others are judged” and I, as one who has put out FAAAR too much money on themes, know this firsthand) and even THEY don’t have anything LIKE this. *I* always try and keep an eye out for anything interesting or different (and, at the same time, will keep me from EATING my Blackberry – not terribly tasty…don’t believe me? Take a lick and get back to me…).
The edges of the navigation ring in the middle move up and down - the left side edge (with the little arrow politely saying "you are here" in that airport-calm-but-I'm-probably-a-serial-killer voice) the *battery* meter. The right side is the signal strength telling you that you are, in fact, in direct communication with FAON himself!. Or…uh… something like that anyway...
Faon is simple even though it LOOKS complicated. Give it 30 minutes to USE it (and I am not talking about one of those wimpy Blackberry users who still have 38 applications installed, 33,702 messages unchecked in their “superhooker” Hotmail account and only have the silly thing “because it was free”). I am talking about the Blackberry user who isn’t afraid to knock someone down, walk off a cliff or break a nose running into something at the mall because they can’t be bothered with looking up from “La Machina Nera” (which is Italian for “The Black Machine” – which is what I call mine). I am not saying this is not for the novitiate or casual user, because, it really is, but… the theme is WELL-EXECUTED. It is clean and INCREDIBLY useful. The layout on the main-screen consists of the Messages, Phone, Calendar, and Browser buttons (I swear…if one more idiot puts “MediaNET” on the home-screen…straight to the moon, ALICE! – **WHY** do we have that on these horrifically expensive devices again?), which (CONFESS! CONFESS!) is *truly* what most of us use.
((FYI - to anyone who has read "the writings of a madman," which would be *I*, you will know that they are, for the most part duplicates of what I write elsewhere because I think the more information people have about something, and from more *OF* us, the better they will know if what they are looking at is going to be useful or if they should run shrrrrieeeeeking and screaming away in mortal terror, give or take, mind you.))
1) Too pricey for something I don't know will work well on my Storm. Sorry but too many themes/apps have this thing called memory leaks either by themselves or coupled with other installed apps.
2) Maybe black color.
Keep it simple. People like me are a lot out there. I had NateMz's Pro V3 before because it was so damn functional and simplistic. It just didn't work with 5.0. He made an "upgrade" Pro V4 for 5.0 instead of just making the Pro V3 work for 5.0. Lost a lot of followers from that. :(
Anyway, make something like that and lower your price please.
I know I am probably going to get flamed for this, but can someone tell me how to go about changing the center icons/functions? Thanks!
just set first 6 icons on app screen as you want them on home screen. that's it! ;)
I have NEVER been a theme guy but I have to admit I broke down and got this one. I am impressed !!! It's simple and basic and most important you don't have to go searching around for where your stuff went.
I have to say it was a good find and being I don't care for themes this one is nice ............. simple and straight forward
Net
It's OK, but I wish that it's icon's were the exact duplicate of my BB's icons. Some, like BBM are generic icons. I like the screen transitions. Should be able to change the four main sections of the desktop area for more customizing. I like the scrool wheel in the middle, took me a couple of minutes to figure out how to change those icons. My overall rating, I would give it a 3 out of 5.
When using the quick launch to switch apps, the native icons are black so you don't know what it in the quick launch unless you highlight it and then it'll appear. The only icons you can see are 3rd party apps. Makes it hard to know where to navigate if you want to quickly switch applications.
*this is all on the 9500 series*
Thanks, I'd appreciate that because I did like the theme.
I bought the theme last night and I really do love this theme. I've been through a lot of themes and this is finally the one for me.
I know people are complaining about the colors being too dark and what not; but I think that's my favorite part about the theme. The style is pretty damn cool. It looks futuristic but with class and simplicity.
Some things I would hope to see improved
1. When highlighting the icon in the wheel, I wish it would say below what your highlighting.
2. Since it only glows on native icons and apps, I wish the box around it would become brighter when highlighting 3rd party apps or new icons. I just don't know what i might have highlighted unless I read the top. So i wish the box would become bright.
I haven't seen anything else that questioned me. I really do love the theme, so keep up the good work!
On my tour with the 5.0 OS, if I take a picture and send to facebook, the mobile upload dialog shows white text on a white background when filling out the description. What PIA.
Other than that, I wish I could change the browser or the other 4 main icons.
I downloaded this theme and it looks great. Great functionality... HedoneDesign does great work. BUT... the theme feels a little dark, and I really miss having a picture as my background. The icons are not "lit" unless you scroll over them, so they feel somewhat dark as well. And some of the gray text strains your eyes.
Still a great theme... good for those who like shortcuts/quick access to a number of apps from the home page.
I purchased this morning, remember 20% off coupon (super) if you order off superstore phone app. Was a great looking theme. I was able to put all my favorite apps on the wheel, and quicklaunch shortcut on space bar. It would be nice if the user could also select the four shortcuts on main screen ie. BerryWeather and MeterBerry would be better for me, but probably can't be done. Got it all set up, everything moved and filed away like you have too with a new theme, then it happened..............I pushed the browser button! Bang- Uncaught exception: java.langIllegalArgumentException phone locked up, had to do a battery pull. This has happened to me a few times with other themes but not with some others. Removed it and went back to InTheKnow. Sent an email to customer service, we'll see what they think?
we'll check that and reply to your mail!
I do agree with the comments left in here its price is little bit costly compared to the design. i would love to see all the icons in the ring as there are only few but i will say good effort but can make better in so many ways such as choose desired color and as i said early the most important all icons to choose in the ring that would be great and perfect theme. last but not least good theme but please make it much better.
Hey B! I agree it would be great to have all icons, not only 6 in the ring, but imagine speed of that kind of theme. Would not help you... That would slow you down... But we did think about that, but wouldn't have sense... :(
6.99 is kinda pricey for me, I change my themes more than twice a month and I'm changing my profile more than 5 times a day, so if I need to enter the menu screen its less user friendly.. I'll pass :)
Hey eRick! You don't have to go to home screen since you have 6 user defined icons in the ring and 4 predefined. Just place profile icon to one of first icone on app screen and you'll have it in ring on homescreen.
$6.99 is kinda rough.
I'll pass.
Since it is now illegal to own slaves (and who the hell would, frankly, put up with that crap anymore now anyway?), you actually have to *pay* good artists (and programmers for that matter - if you thought *artists* were prima donnas, you've never met a *programmer* before) to do good work. I've been doing design work for years (no themes - print design, web design, etc) and charge about $125.00/hour. A theme or a website takes about 2-3 weeks with 3 people (which is how many Hedone averages on theme work) at 14-17 hours-per-day. Soooo… You are looking at an AVERAGE of about $30,000.00 *PER* theme to develop, so no one is getting rich off of our broken backs and especially not at $7.00.
If you cannot afford that price, keep checking back on their site as they always have some out-of-the-blue sale on SOMETHING there. *I* am CONSTANTLY running across things I cannot buy on the web and elsewhere and seek out a free version (which , frankly, usually turns out to be a reminder as to why you DO pay for things. Give their work a shot - and work with it a bit. Everything new *I* install on my BB takes a lot of moving, tweaking and reworking, but that is the price people like us pay for wanting both a phone that functions like no other and having one that you can COMPLETELY change the user interface.
I have been using this theme for almost a week. My good buddy rezn pointed me in the direction of this theme. I have a great deal of praise for it. I haven't seen any lag what-so-ever. Response time on the svg center console is awesome. I would never ask a theme designer to remake a theme as I create them too and I know how much time and effort goes into one. I will admit though, the highlight text is a little hard to read as it is a dark gray on blue. Great job. I bet this theme would look hot in some other colors as well (Black and Red). Great job as usual Hedone! Definitely worth the money!
I think its just a little too plain for me. But I do like the clean look of it. Just needs a few more colors I think.
this kind of comments are those we are really glad to see... wishes, desires and thoughts... so we can build themes that you guys would like to get from us.
This theme is build for those who like elegant and not too colorful look of their BBs, but there is a lot of other types that would look awesome too and maybe we'll do just something you want!
I think we will have to do wish list here on CB forum shortly. It will be nice to get input from you... our customers.
Thanx!
Bought the theme , colour and style are great but not actually using it now. It does not quite have the functionality I need. I would have had the wheel to the right with more custom options. And used the set icon space for email sms calend and a larger today area, showing as silver on blue. Add in a quicklaunch link via spacebar and you have my perfect theme. Ah well , I can dream !
$7 shot in the a$$. That's why I don't buy themes. They look good in screen shots but you don't know how they work (or don't) until you fork over the $$$.
$7 shot in the a$$. That's why I don't buy themes. They look good in screen shots but you don't know how they work (or don't) until you fork over the $$$.
Lower your price. $7 is nuts.
I dig the style and colors :)
Kewl