1. hastings's Avatar
    AppleBerry Dark Theme Suite 2.0 has been released!
    06/22/2010

    This is easily my best work. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to really write a solid run through of each version, so until I can get some time to create that write up just use the Feature breakdown in the instructions and a little bit of imagination/experimentation. There's tons to play with here.

    Buy from CrackBerry: AppleBerry Dark Theme Suite - Themes BlackBerry Apps - Crackberry BlackBerry Apps Store
    Last edited by hastings; 06-09-11 at 04:58 PM.
    06-14-10 11:50 AM
  2. hastings's Avatar
    Product Tour:

    Welcome to the AppleBerry Dark Theme Suite 2.0.



    You're first greeted with a high-contrast view of your homescreen. All of the signal indicators and notifications are designed to stand out from each other, making the important elements more prominent than everything else. You really can't miss your battery meter or signal strength, even in bright sunlight they're more visible than most other themes. The date and time are prominently placed in the center of the screen where you can always see them. What I'm getting at here, the layout of AppleBerry has always been one of it's best features. Everything is where it should be, logically placed, and easy to see.

    Navigating is simple, scroll up on the icon dock to access your Profiles icon, and left-right to access any of the icons on your dock. On the right of the dock you'll notice the "icon drawer", a highly interactive hidden dock. The icons that you see in the drawer are actually live icon previews of what appears when you click on it, I call them "minicons". These minicons even display third party applications just the same, sitting in the little drawer waiting for you to interact with them.



    Interactive homescreens are fun, and make your device more enjoyable to use. AppleBerry has always featured the classic "bouncing" icons, and I wanted to take it a step further. With AppleBerry Dark, I wanted to step it up a notch and really bring those minicons to life. As of today, minicons feature realistic inertial jumping effects - I'm really excited about this. When you highlight the icon drawer it glows white and brings the minicons to life, where they bounce up and down out of the bucket literally begging you to click on them. They don't just move up and down, they feature life-like jumping/bouncing physics designed by my really geeky friend with a physics degree. The animation is smooth as butter and has no effect on CPU, battery, or memory usage. When you scroll away from the icon drawer the minicons go to sleep and wait for their next chance to shine.



    Can't resist clicking on those cute little icons? Neither could I. When you activate the bucket (scroll wheel/trackpad click), you're given access to six full size, user-definable icons in the form of Stacks grid view. Navigating these icons is simple, scroll up and around to move around the Stack, a realistic Mac OS style mouse pointer follows your cursor so you know which icon is highlighted, even third party icons without traditional rollover affects. Scrolling out of the Stack is easy too, no matter where you are, scrolling down on your trackpad will navigate you out of the Stack. Clicking the down arrow on the dock will close the Stack and bring back the drawer full of minicons.



    Pressing the BlackBerry hardware key on your device brings you to the Application Menu, just like it always does. Here you're greeted with some of the cleanest, highest contrast icons you'll ever see on your device. AppleBerry icons are designed and selected specifically to be self-explanatory. Try it for yourself, look at the picture above and try to match the icons to their specific applications, you'll find it's pretty easy to do. This makes navigating and finding your favourite applications as easy as possible, requiring very little thought, instead relying on instinct.



    Here you can see more of the icons, again, try to figure out which icon represents each application, you should find it pretty easy. Even icons that are traditionally left as default by other premium theme developers have been created, including Word Mole and Brickbreaker. All of the folder icons are also customized making it easier than ever to organize your applications.



    Oh look, it's my good friend Johnny Appleseed calling. The incoming call screen features large, high-contrast fonts with all of the important aspects of the caller information bolded to stand out. I want to know who is calling before I want my eyes to see what the phone number is, the font selection here guides your eyes automatically.



    On the phone with John you can get a sense for the layout of the active call screen. All of the active call information is sorted on the left, and all of the secondary phone information is on the right. The active call timer is huge, so you know at first glance how long you've been on the phone, and I've left room for multiple callers for those of you who conference call on a daily basis. The volume indicator is the traditional Mac OS style volume indicator, nice and large and placed close to the volume rocker buttons themselves for easier use.



    John and I got into a fight, so I'm going to delete him from my contact list. Here you can see the beautiful dialog boxes designed to be pixel perfect, with light drop shadows underneath which make them seem like they're floating, not glued to your screen. The dialog bubbles are all customized and have been reduced in size to fit with the text and other elements a bit better. You also get a view of the popular AppleBerry gel buttons. I didn't want to modify these too much since they're already really well received, but I did bump the contrast of the highlight button and change the colour a bit to match the rest of the AppleBerry Dark colour scheme.



    The pop-up menus are also incredibly crisp and high-contrast, they slide up and down with the click of the BlackBerry hardware key. (a non-transitions version will be included in the suite) This also gives you a good view of the menu highlight colours, you always know which menu item is selected because of the high contrast gradient used. It looks awesome on the device.



    Well, I'm done with the product tour, so I'll just leave you with the classic AppleBerry lock screen. A nice golden lock resting on top of the same dock as your icons on the homescreen, classic AppleBerry.
    Last edited by hastings; 06-14-10 at 12:44 PM.
    06-14-10 11:51 AM
  3. mulishaman187's Avatar
    Can't wait! I beta tested and used Appleberry on my 8530 and loved it.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    06-14-10 12:13 PM
  4. Pi Guy 3.14's Avatar
    I'm a huge fan of appleberry, so this should be sweet!
    06-14-10 12:31 PM
  5. dazednfazed's Avatar
    NICE! Cant wait for this, The Appleberry series is just amazing! thanks hastings!
    06-14-10 01:13 PM
  6. Pi Guy 3.14's Avatar
    This would be a 10/10 with me if it didn't have a banner and the profile icon. But looks great man!
    06-14-10 01:45 PM
  7. drumzalicious's Avatar
    Will the wallpaper we have for the main screen be the one we see in the app menu or will it be the one shown here?

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    06-14-10 01:53 PM
  8. Aftashok's Avatar
    ahhh, i was hoping that "Dark" indicated blacked-out menus, cuz that would be awesome i think with this theme....
    06-14-10 02:28 PM
  9. hastings's Avatar
    This would be a 10/10 with me if it didn't have a banner and the profile icon. But looks great man!
    Yeah, I know not everybody is a fan of the Profile icon on the homescreen but I had to keep it in line with the original AppleBerry. The rest of the banner is really to keep the time and date in a prominent place, I find themes that have such small clocks are usually the first to disappear from somebody's device.
    06-14-10 06:16 PM
  10. hastings's Avatar
    Will the wallpaper we have for the main screen be the one we see in the app menu or will it be the one shown here?

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    As of right now, only the home screen and lock screen use the user customizable wallpaper. For whatever reason I haven't been able to make the application menu user customizable, if there is a way, I would gladly implement such a change. Do any themes on the 9700 support this?
    06-14-10 06:17 PM
  11. hastings's Avatar
    ahhh, i was hoping that "Dark" indicated blacked-out menus, cuz that would be awesome i think with this theme....
    I originally toyed with a totally blacked out menu system and messages screen, but it caused a lot of problems with too many third party and main applications. I have to go for mass-compatibility here, and that means keeping it white. (=
    06-14-10 06:18 PM
  12. Walshy701's Avatar
    Looks good, the wait is a killer. Is there an ETA?

    Also, I had this theme with my Storm. Will there be a quick device version swap for the 9700 version?


    Thanks
    06-14-10 09:13 PM
  13. hastings's Avatar
    Looks good, the wait is a killer. Is there an ETA?

    Also, I had this theme with my Storm. Will there be a quick device version swap for the 9700 version?


    Thanks
    ETA is this weekend.

    You should be able to swap your device using the MobiHand system, but if you're not able to figure it out you can send me an email ([email protected]) and I will assist you.
    06-15-10 11:14 AM
  14. SlimGuy78's Avatar
    If you have the light version already will you be able to upgrade to this one for free or not ?
    06-15-10 12:00 PM
  15. Lovewalk218's Avatar
    good question Slim
    06-15-10 03:06 PM
  16. hastings's Avatar
    If you have the light version already will you be able to upgrade to this one for free or not ?
    Hey Slimguy,

    Unfortunately I can't make this a free upgrade. It would be really cool, I know, but that would mean offering up sixteen different versions for the same price if I allowed all original users to also get Dark for free.

    I'll make sure to stick up a discount coupon code when I launch it for all forum users to give it a whirl. I will also be updating the original AppleBerry with the bouncing minicons once Dark makes its rounds on other devices.

    I always try to provide the best value possible, which is why I offer up so many versions for a low price to begin with. (=

    Thanks for the interest! I'll make sure to keep everybody as happy as I can.
    06-15-10 04:15 PM
  17. SlimGuy78's Avatar
    Hey Slimguy,

    Unfortunately I can't make this a free upgrade. It would be really cool, I know, but that would mean offering up sixteen different versions for the same price if I allowed all original users to also get Dark for free.

    I'll make sure to stick up a discount coupon code when I launch it for all forum users to give it a whirl. I will also be updating the original AppleBerry with the bouncing minicons once Dark makes its rounds on other devices.

    I always try to provide the best value possible, which is why I offer up so many versions for a low price to begin with. (=

    Thanks for the interest! I'll make sure to keep everybody as happy as I can.
    That's kool man no worries .. Very understandable i was just curious
    06-15-10 05:18 PM
  18. shizzyrir's Avatar
    will i be able to swap from the normal appleberry suite to this dark one?
    06-15-10 11:25 PM
  19. hastings's Avatar
    will i be able to swap from the normal appleberry suite to this dark one?
    I actually have no way to do a product swap, only a device swap. MobiHand doesn't give us all the tools they have at their disposal. I would need to manually refund orders and trust the original purchaser to repurchase Dark.

    I'll post a coupon code so everybody here gets a chance to grab it for a low price. (=

    Release is this weekend, just touching up a few things.
    06-16-10 12:11 PM
  20. Pi Guy 3.14's Avatar
    I know you dismissed my initial request, but if you could make another version without the banners and the profile icon I would gladly pay triple
    06-16-10 12:18 PM
  21. hastings's Avatar
    I know you dismissed my initial request, but if you could make another version without the banners and the profile icon I would gladly pay triple
    Haha, sorry. I thought your initial post was more of a statement then a question. =P

    At this point I can't offer customizations, I really only do that once I get a product out for all devices, and admittedly, even then it's pretty rare. It's not about money it's about time for me, AppleBerry is a third job for me. (albeit, my favourite of the three)
    06-16-10 12:47 PM
  22. Pi Guy 3.14's Avatar
    How bout another version called appleberryspecial? And then you can give it to me for free for all the huge sales you'll get from that one
    06-16-10 01:19 PM
  23. KJowers's Avatar
    Thanks for this theme and the offer of posting a coupon code for everyone. I've purchased Appleberry and Spaces from you (although I can't use spaces now since I don't have a Storm) and I look forward to buying this as well.

    Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com
    06-17-10 08:47 PM
  24. SusuBerry's Avatar
    I really like it, but i want something really girly, i want it on pink background with same icons,and how do u dwnload these themes wheres OTA dwnload ,man not fun, i like alot themes n cnt get em!!!
    06-17-10 08:57 PM
  25. dondidit's Avatar
    Really looking forward to this theme! It will be my first time trying the Appleberry though I have see the original Appleberry (the lighter version), I really do like this darker one better!
    Your work is very good and I thank you for putting it out there.
    06-18-10 02:37 PM
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