HTC Incredible can be even MORE Incredible… replace HTC’s Sense UI and use these Widgets

Sense UI Pictured

I am a recovering Sense UI (video here) fanboy. At first, I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. Now, I am happily using another home screen which dumps the flip clock/weather widget (4 x 2) and the extremely limited bottom dock (3 button). This post is a how-to for replacing your Sense UI home screen along with some recommendations, including widgets. I have linked apps to their respective AppBrain pages.

A word of caution, if you rely heavily on HTC’s proprietary widgets, then you may not want to replace your home screen. Frankly, I found them to be clunky and oversized in many cases, using up valuable real estate on the screen.

If you want to replace your home screen, there are a number of options available to you. OpenHome ($3.99), aHome ($4.99) and GDE (2.60 Euro) are popular home screen replacements in the Market but they are all paid apps. I chose to redesign my UI on the cheap and selected LauncherPro, a free beta home screen replacement (over 8,300 ratings and an average of 4.73 out of 5.00). Other free options include HelixLauncher, HelixLauncher2, Home++ and Tag Home. But, first things first. You will need the free Home Switcher app or another similar app that allows you to switch to a different home screen. Using Home Switcher, you can pick a home screen on the fly, without a reboot. You can also designate a default home screen.

LauncherPro is a terrific home screen replacement for many reasons. Some earlier versions were force closing but the latest version is very stable on the HTC Incredible. I have noticed that on rare occasions the app drawer will lag when opening but this happens very infrequently. These are the reasons I prefer LauncherPro to Sense UI:

1. The bottom dock (which is present on any of the home screen panels) has five buttons, four of which can be customized. The fifth is the app drawer. I used the four customizable buttons for phone, HandCent (SMS), Gmail and Dolphin HD.
2. LauncherPro is very configurable. Menu -> Preferences to change them. I selected 7 home screens with 4, the middle one, as my default screen. I also enabled auto-rotation (a feature Sense UI does not support). I left “home button to default screen” unchecked because I prefer that the home key show me thumbnails of every screen; this is the same as pinch-zoom on Sense UI, a feature that also works in LauncherPro.
3. The screen animations are impressive. If you click the app drawer, icons fly into the screen and when you return to the home screen they fly back out. Apps also fly in and out.

These are some of the widgets I have found that you might find appealing (all free with two noted exceptions):

• 3 (Cubed) — This is my preferred music player and the 2 x 2 widget shows album artwork along with controls. (This app is hard to find in the Market. Just click on the AppBrain link to add it.)
• Advanced Task Manager Free — This is a good task manager and it is easy to exclude processes. I use it sparingly but it does come in handy at times.
• Android Agenda Widget — This is the best calendar widget I have found and you can select different sizes beginning as small as 2 x 2.
• AudioManager Widget — Displays all of the volume settings on the widget.
• Battery Widget — One of the best for displaying %s. Click to enable and disable services.
• Beautiful Widgets (1.49 Euro) — This package has many 1 x 1 toggles but, more importantly, Beautiful Home (4 x 2) and Beautiful Smaller Home (4 x 1) clock/weather widgets are amazing. They can be reskinned with downloadable apps and heavily customized. You can even choose what programs launch when you tap time, date or weather. To customize the widget after you slapped it on the screen, tap weather icon -> Menu -> Skins or Configure. There is also an accompanying weather live wall paper that you can download from within the app.
• Extended Controls Bar (0.79 Euro)– A bar that can range from 1 x 1 to 4 x 1. This works like the power widget in stock Android but you can customize the toggles. I have 7 toggles on a 4 x 1 bar.
• Fancy Widget — This is almost identical to the HTC Sense UI flip clock/weather widget. Frankly, I don’t care for it but if you want a Sense looking environment with a customizable bottom dock, this widget might appeal to you.
• Gmail Unread Count — 1 x 1 Gmail notification icon that is very customizable in terms of icon, colors and label.
• Google Buzz — 4 x 1 widget because I’m a big fan of Buzz and, particularly, mobile Buzz.
• HandCent SMS — Previously mentioned but I throw down a 1 x 1 widget to alert me to new text messages.
• Last.fm — 4 x 1 because I really like Last.fm and prefer it to Pandora and Slacker.
• NYTimes — 4 x 1 of all the news that is fit to print.
• Reader Widget — I use this for displaying my Google Reader RSS feeds.
• Twitter (Official) — This is a very good widget and I prefer Twitter (Official) to other twitter apps (though I’m looking forward to TweetDeck).
• Wifi Toggle Widget — Last but certainly not least, this 1 x 1 widget displays the SSID of the Wifi network you are connected to beneath the icon, glows different colors to alert you to status and, of course, toggles Wifi on and off. This is a must have widget.

Drop a comment down there if you know of a widget I should check out or have opinions about customizing the home screen.

You might also enjoy:

1. Demo of HTC’s Latest Sense UI (HTC Legend, HTC Desire, HTC Incredible…) [VIDEO]
2. HTC Desire on Camera with Latest Sense UI [Video]
3. Latest Android Apps/Widgets/Launchers on My Phone
4. Google, Buzz could replace Blogs if…
5. HTC Incredible can be even MORE Incredible… Part II. Install these Apps.