Hero ROMs

An official Hero ROM update has been leaked but I haven’t applied it. The reason is I went with MoDaCo’s 2.2 custom ROM (core) instead. I know I said I wasn’t going to use custom ROMs on my Hero but I couldn’t resist. If something can be modded to get extra functionality I’ll usually go right ahead and mod. The official firmware update removes root functionality and the ability to boot/flash an unsigned image which means:

• Wi-fi tethering won’t work
• Cyanogen’s custom recovery image can’t be used
• Nandroid back-ups can’t be made

The MoDaCo ROM retains these abilities which I didn’t want to lose. It’s based on the official 2.73 update anyway so it contains all the fixes therein. The lag has definitely been reduced especially using Spare Parts to set the transitions to “Fast”. However, flash in the browser is still clunky and slow. Hopefully when flash 10 officially comes to android this will get sorted out.

Reader Widget Pro V1.6 out

I have just uploaded V1.6 of Reader Widget Pro to the Market. Here’s the change log:

• New feature: headline list is now expandable to view article summaries. The summary is text only at present but this might change in the future. Tapping on the summary launches a new browser window for that article.
• Improved clean up on last widget deletion
• Bug fix: the loading message on the large widget was too brief.
• Bug fix: duplicate headlines in pop-up list.
• Bug fix: relaunching tag list after launching Greed from it no longer goes back to Greed. This is part of Android’s default activity behaviour and I found it confusing so put a stop to it.
• Bug fix: tag and headline lists now relaunch properly. Sometimes they wouldn’t launch, freezing the screen until the back button was pressed.

Recently I was on the train without coverage and realised that the large widget actually makes a half decent offline Google Reader client. Especially with summaries in the headlines list now.

Reader Widget Small V1.6 out

Just a quick bug fix to the Adfonic ad code in this one.

Reader Widget Small V1.5 out

I have uploaded a new version of the free widget to the Market and the usual place. Here’s the changelog:

• Manual login option for users with Google Reader accounts separate from their Android account. Automatic login is still there for everyone else (and selected by default).
• Text ads from Adfonic in the configuration screens
• Handling of no network connectivity improved
• Tidy up on widget deletion improved
• JSON version of Google Reader API used for lower data usage