I have been a longtime CyanogenMOD follower. I have flashed hundreds of ROMs and just as many themes to various devices. Through out the course of my experiences I always wanted more control. I dabbled in making my own themes and even made a few changes that I really loved. What always frustrated me was not the themers fault at all, but was very irritating. Often times I would find a theme that I absolutely loved. That love would slowly fade over time because one or two aspects of the theme just didn’t sit right. To counter that I would pull various aspects of work from developers and put the bits and pieces I liked into a new theme. I never released any of them as I never wanted to be labeled a KANGER or a thief. I would have provided credit, but the fact was, I had such a jumble of things that I couldn’t even remember where they all came from. Now I finally took the plunge and flashed MIUI to my Vibrant last week. I couldn’t be happier.

Many of you will fight the good fight and argue “If I wanted an iPhone I would have bought one.” True, the layout is very much like an iPhone. That doesn’t detour me from enjoying it. There are many aspects of MIUI I could go into that are wonderful, but this article is aimed at themes. Unlike many ROMs currently available, in order to theme your device you need to flash a zip file, except in the case of CM7 of course. That theme is then carries over to all the aspects of the device that the themer chose to alter. Sometimes its incomplete, sometimes it’s not what you expected. No matter what happens, there is still room for improvement and individual taste. Many users have taken up various applications like ADWLauncher and Go Launcher to give them more control over individual aspects of their device and theme certain areas to their liking. That can make life a little more interesting since now you need to search for a theme for a specific application.

With MIUI it is all built-in. You have the general theme area where you can choose a theme that is pre-loaded or download a new one online right through the device. That makes life pretty darn easy. What they have done, and from what I have been told, more recently, ss allow you to choose individual sections of your device and use just the part of a theme you like.  Under the ‘Customize’ section you have the following options -

• Lockscreen
• Home
• Icon
• Status Bar
• Font
• SMS
• Dialer
• Bootanimation

That’s just for starters. You can select a theme for each one of those aspects of the device. This allows you to mix and match your favorites to give the device the look you are after. For instance, If you take a look at mine you will see I have 5 different theme aspects through out my device. It is pretty amazing.

 By giving the user the option to not only theme out the entire device exactly how they see fit, but also give them access to hundreds of themes, you can’t ever not like how your device looks. This also does away with having to constantly flash a zip file and potentially running into issues. Anyone else flashed a zip and forget to make a back up first and been completed screwed? Been there, done that. With MIUI you don’t have to play that hopes and dreams game. Find the one you like hit apply and go look at it. If you don’t like it, go apply a different one. It’s so simple and easy it is mind bobbling why it hasn’t been done by Google.

I am starting to see what all the hype was about when it came to MIUI. If you ever have a chance to try it out, please do. Use it for at least a week before you pass judgement on the iPhoneish look. You can always install your favorite launcher app to solve that issue if it is one. If you love themes and are just worn out from flashing and never finding the right mix of look, you should check it out. I even got David, the self proclaimed Go Launcher promoter, to switch over and check it out, he is loving it.

Look for more of these write ups in the future as I still learn what other things MIUI can provide to even the average user.

 

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