New Theme Thursday: Altiaris

Sometimes it’s best to pick your own wallpaper. After all, you have to stare at your BlackBerry all day. Might as well have the background image be something pleasing to your eye. Yet so many premium BlackBerry themes come with wallpaper that is part of the theme. Altiaris is not one of those themes. It might come with a simple, calm wallpaper, but you can really change it to anything you want. It won’t take away from the enormous functionality it provides. As with many themes, Altiaris features a hidden dock on the bottom, which contains customizable icons. You can bring it up and hide it with a few simple keystrokes: alt + 2, or alt +4. Where it stands out, though, is in the rest of the stuff you can view and hide. The side dock, which contains four fixed icons, and an “OCD slot” under the clock, which contains three fixed icons, can also be hidden. There’s even a hide-able transparent bar that sits behind the dock. The only things that stay on the screen permanently are the top bar, which contains notifications, the bottom bar, which contains the date and signal meters, and the clock. (Though I don’t quite get the need for both a digital and analog clock, but whatever.) I kinda dig the battery and signal meters, which are on the bottom right of the screen. They’re in numbers, not in an image, so it’s easier to see how many bars you have. Everything else is pretty straight forward, which is the way it should be. Themes can contain a lot of features, but it’s best not to get fancy with the basics. You can get the Altiaris theme for just $2.49. It is compatible with basically any device running OS 4.6 and above.