Theme Review Wednesday: SkyLark, Death’s Door, DOGA

Last week I wondered if we really needed OS 6 themes. From what I’ve found the default theme works best, but not everyone will share this opinion. Thankfully, most themes we review are compatible not only with OS 6, but previous OS versions, so it won’t affect how we do things here. I really can’t wait, though, for a beefier version of Theme Builder that will allow for more robust OS 6 themes. And with that, onto this week’s crop.

SkyLark

If you go to the Berry Good Themes home page, you can see that they’re featuring their best selling themes. It was a little odd to see such simple themes atop the list, but after thinking about it for two seconds it made sense. People do want simplicity. But what caught my eye was not the simple themes, but a cartooney looking one called SkyLark. Oh, it’s simple enough, don’t get me wrong. The home screen features a six-icon dock, though the icons are unique to the theme. The background is a simple animated scene, one that reminds you of the coming spring. The applications menu looks similar. I also dig the call screen, which just seems to work for some reason. Really, I like the animations, and I like the icons, which is why this one stood out to me. Also, it’s simple in its own right. What’s great about simple themes is that they’re also typically cheap. You can get the SkyLark theme for just $1.99. It works with Os versions 4.5 and up.

Death’s Door

Talk about themes that catch my eye. In looking at new themes in the BBGeeks Store I found one with ye olde Grim Reaper front and center. His presence, combined with a gratuitous number of skulls in the theme, made this a winner for me. As you can see in the screen shot, this is a pretty basic theme on its own. Everything is arranged neatly, with notifications and meters in the top right, a skull-covered clock on the top left, and a bottom dock featuring six icons. You can hide the dock by pressing escape, or you can bring it back by pressing the zero key. Again, functionally this is nothing like the stuff we see from Hedone and Elecite. But in terms of pure awesomeness, I have to put this up with the better themes. If you want Death staring you in the face, you can get the Death’s Door theme for just 99 cents. It appears to only be compatible with OS 6 non-touch devices.

DOGA

Clearly there’s a theme to this theme review feature. Instead of going for “ooh, look at all this theme can do” as we usually do, I’m picking interesting visual themes. The last on this list is one new to App World, DOGA. Ol’ Fido is staring you right in the face with this one, but oh my, isn’t he a cute animated fellow? The theme features custom icons, which is quite perfect for a theme like this. The home screen features a number of icons, depending on which OS you’re using. But, really, I’m not concerned about that. I really like the icons that comes with this. I also like how Hooch’s expression changes depending on the screen. The only thing missing is him yelping when you press an icon. If you dig themes like this, you can get the DOGA theme at App World for $3.99. It works with BlackBerry models running OS 4.6 and above.

About the Author

Joe Pawlikowski is the Senior Editor at MobileMoo.com and has been covering the mobile industry full time since 2007. When he's not writing about the tech scene, he can be found discussing his personal love - baseball (and more specifically the New York Yankees) as well as writing on his personal blog.