[AT&T, Rogers, Bell, Telus Samsung Galaxy S III] Txwolf1980:
REVIEWJT Inverted Productions Inverted Gapps

Verizon Galaxy Nexus (Toro)

ROM: Codename Android 10/6 nightly

Kernel: Faux -jb-021

RECOVERY: TWRP 2.3.0

GAPPS version: 3.2.2 (4.2 Gmail)

I'm reviewing (as made obvious) Justin's Inverted Gapps 3.2.2

First, the people.

Justin will be the first to tell you that “JusTun Bean Inverted Gapps” is somewhat of a misnomer. The three members of the team that I'm familiar with are Justin860, Tun_SD, and cajunflavoredbob, all here on XDA.

Tun_SD is the themer. And he is GOOD. His apps are second to none, that I've seen. Clean, black, and fully functional

Justin860 is the modder of Aroma, for this package, and the brain behind all of this (as far as I can tell). Aroma installer, is seamless, and well designed.

The most recent to join the trio is cajunflavoredbob. He took up the duties of creating the quickflash zip when, due to time constraints, Justin pulled back from it. Now, to be honest, I have not used the qiuckflash version, personally. So, this review will concentrate on the Aroma installer, and on the apps themselves.

Justin expects you to read the forums, before you ask questions. An art that is quickly becoming lost on XDA. But, if you are the first to post up about an issue, he and Tun_SD are on it QUICKLY. By the time this review is posted up, it will be a version behind. Not due to major bug fixes, but due to additions to the package, fine tuning, and tweaks that these three insist upon. This has been especially true lately, with the arrival of Jellybean on the scene, the update to 4.1.2, and the impending arrival of 4.2. The version coming out this weekend has been hinted to include instagram, and (if I saw the screenshots right) facebook. As I said, these people are not satisfied with putting out a package and sitting back.

Aroma.

Aroma, on the surface can seem to be confusing, until you use it. It's nothing to do with the flash package itself. But more due to the fact that it is a format that is rarely used. I had never heard of it before using it.

That being said, you enter it in recovery, same as you do with any other flashable zip. You select it, and a couple of seconds later, a clean new interface pops up.

All you do, is click next, agree to the terms (which are essentially a disclaimer, and a statement that you agree that you know what you are doing. No, he doesn't collect any information), click next again, and a third time after you read the changelog. Then you get to the meat of Aroma. You will have two options. Aroma file manager, and the installer. You click on the installer, and you are presented with a list of options. The first section involves wiping options. The second offers whether or not to install regular Gapps, the third involves whether to install inverted gapps, and finally the last section asks if you want extras.

Once you go through those, you are presented with a list of all gapps, and several system apps that have been themed (People, Calendar, Email, MMS, and contacts), By default, all Gapps, and system apps are selected for you. You simply deselect any that you don't want inverted. Click next

If you choose extras, you get another list, which includes Apex and Nova launchers, Apollo Music, ES file, Dropbox, MIUI music, and RomToobox lite. In the third section, you get a trio of sample themes that TUN_SD created as well, and are known to work well with the inverts, and the option for the GNEX boot animation. Of these, the only things checked are MIUI music, and the themes.

Two Caveats, before we get into the apps.

1. If you are fond of themes, some of them may not work well with these apps. Not a detriment to either the themes or the apps, just a fact of the way frameworks and various 'Styles@appxyz work.

2. The GNEX boot animation is hit or miss on some devices. If you select it, and it doesn't work, there is no harm to your system, it just won't overwrite whichever animation you have in place.

Once you click 'install', you are given a live actions list, which tells you everything that is going on, and a bar down at the bottom, which gives you a running completion percentage. Obviously, I have to assume that the percentages are accurate, but it is enough to make me wish thaat flashing ROM's and other recovery installs were that precise in letting me know what is going on. It would be a great troubleshooting tool.

Once the installs are finished, you click next one more time, then "finish". At this point, it boots you back out into your recovery, and the phone reboots with no other prompting from you. Since you (at the minimum) wiped dalvik, in aroma, boot will take the standard extended time.

Justin states in the OP that you need to do a full wipe, before flashing the inverts the first time. The reasons are the same as for any other full wipe. You are altering, deleting, and replacing system files. just do it.

Apps.

General. When you first boot your phone, you will be prompted with a slew of permission requests. It's the way Google is doing Gapps now. Go through, and accept them. There are some with multiple aspects to approve, and in those cases, you will be prompted with multiple requests on the app (Search and G+ come to mind). It also doesn't always seem to take the first time, in my experience. G+ required a couple of attempts, before sign in was successful. No big deal. Just don't panic if it doesn't sign in the first time, every time.

Secondly, Paranoid Android seems to have some compatability issues, due to the fact that DPI can be altered on the app level. Not a deal breaker, to be sure. But the first trouble shooting step should be to check your app settings in ROM control, for anyone using PA

Google Plus

This one, like all of the apps is a standard inversion. Where it excels is how deep the inversions go. It's not just on the surface, but all of your menus options and text are inverted, as well, while retaining the stock feel. The icon is stock, while the status bar notifications are grey, as opposed to the stock white. Obviously, a theme will alter this aspect of it.

When you open the app, after set up, all of your icons in the menu are stock, but the background for both the sidebar menu and notifications are black, with white text. No surprises, there. On the sock app, the bacground is grey. So, there are no major changes, as far as color.

On the stream, though, Major color difference. Instead of the blinding white, you have a completely black background. And, obviously, the text is white on the invert.

The overflow menu, on the standard app is white with black text. On the invert, it is a slightly lighter shade of grey, just short of black to help differentiate between the menu and the underlying stream.

All of the menus and sidebar options (find people, profile, hangout, etc..) carry this through.

The nicest thing about this app, and all of the others is the complete lack of lag or glitchiness that accompany some of the inverts from other themers. I'm not sure what causes it, but it is definitely missing here.

Gmail

This is the leaked 4.2 that came out last week. Yeah. Didn't take them long at all. Again, stock icon and greyed notification. Opening it up, you have full inverted white/ grey text for unread/read messages, on black background. Anyone else noticing the trend? The icon's down below are all greyed. Swipe away functions are fully intact, as is automatic zoom out, when you open a message. Pinch to zoom also works flawlessly, with no glitching or lag.

The compose mail screen carries the theming through, with greyed text on black background. Same with the menus that accompany it. On the labels screen, custom labels are differentiated with a white header above the checkbox. Again, advocates of multicolor themes may find this slightly stark. But, it gets the job done, without any undo complications. On the message itself, if you chose to move it to a different label, you do get a touch of color, with a holo blue checkmark in the box. Beyond that, the only real dose of color comes from retaining the stock icon in the upper left.

Play Music

Opening up play music, you get more of the same. The icon in upper left is intact, and the only other real dose of color is the holo blue separator between the search/playstore/and overflow icons and the content listings. The indexing tab on the right of lists is also a holo blue. Understated, and it fits very well. Beyond that, the background is black, text white, and album art is left intact, as well. Hitting the overfow menu, you do have the nice blue check mark on the “on device only” box. Yes, this app review is a little less “comprehensive”, but redundancy has it's limits. There are no missed png files here, and erverything just works. Tapping on the play store icon will take you to the next app in our journey

Play store.

This one, along with currents, is a slightly different case. It was actually themed by a member named Kufikugel, as oppsoed to Tun_sd.

Once you open up the app, the background is black, with white primary text for each of the subsections. Here is where the expertise comes in. All of the featured headers (Travel -today- , Games, books, music, and apps) retain their stock coloring on the header text... except “Recommended for you” and a couple of the games that are on the front page. Those have been turned from black text to white. That, ladies and gents, equates to hours of poring through xml's to find which ones to alter. Be appreciative. The same thing carries throughout each of the subsections.

Here is where a little delineation from Play Music crops up, though. And, to be honest, if I hadn't gone straight from one to the other, I wouldn't have noticed it. Instead of the holo blue separator, you get the greyed out bar, with a white highlight under whichever section you are in. The name of the section (I.E. Featured) is also a pure white, as opposed to the greyed out text for the sections to each side.

However the front page of the subsection still retains stock header colors, with the aforementioned exceptions. Swipe over to the listings, and you get stock app icons with white text on black background. The star rating is opposite from what I would expect, however. The filled stars are a grey, with the final star(s) being white. I would've thought that the themer would have filled with white, and left empty stars grey.

Clicking on the app itself, to go into description, the only thing I would like to see different is more separators, between sections. You have a thick white bar between the app icon, and the install/purchase button, and the screenshots, but nothing between screenshots, download count, description, and the rating chart. Once you get into the reviews, and everything below, you have thin grey separators. That is the one part of this package that I have found, so far, that seems unfinished.

If you go into an app that you already have installed, you have a more complete scheme, with bold separators between the app name/icon, and the uninstall and open/update buttons. Then another between those and the screenshots. Again, nothing between download count and the allow auto update checkbox (which gives you that blue checkmark, for a touch of color), a thin one between that and rate/review, but not between rate/review and whats new or description, or reviews. Once again, everything below that has the separator.

If you click on the stars to rate the app, your selection of stars is holo blue, with a grey for any stars you don't highlight. And there is a blue separator between the title and comment section, but a grey one between comments and your cancel/ok selections.

Again, let me say that this is probably the most difficult app to theme, in the package. The separators aside, I think that Kufikugel did an excellent job.

Docs/Drive (pick a name).

On this one, there aren't a ton of mods to do, so the interface is a pretty basic invert. White text, greyed icons and grey separators on a black background. The menu is a dark grey, with light grey separators.

If you go into “My Drive” you have the same. Any starring you do will show up a dark blue, in the star. Not quite as light as the holo blue you see elsewhere. The indexing tab on the right is the holo blue that you have read about, so far. The separators are still the light grey, and text a vibrant white. When you click the arrow to the right of an object, and go into the sharing section, the top bar is a greyish blue, with the hue covering over the icons. The separator goes back to holo blue, as well. Text is either white, or greyish white. And the separators go back to the same ight grey thin line. It seems to fit a little more, in this UI, making the blue one up top more of a primary separator, and the rest secondary. If you have contact pictures for those you have shared with, they show up intact, as well. Beyond that, the theme carries through all of your menus, and settings. Holo blue top separator, and grey after that, with blue check marks.

Google Reader.

I'm bypassing this app, because I'm not even sure HOW to use it. I signed in, but I don't have any content synced to it. So, I will forgo this review in favor of someone with experience with the app.

Google Talk.

Not nearly as many layers as Play Store. But, I think the success in this one is in how well everything still works. The ***** about Gtalk/Messenger is how they tie into Google Plus. With this one, the UI is complete. Profile pics are intact, grey separators are all there, along with the color coded circles to indicate friend status.

I just jumped on video chat with my wife (she's a convenient guinea pig), and the theming carried over to me receiving the call, and it popping up on my screen as a regular call would, black background, and vibrant greens/reds for the answer/ignore options. Once on the call, the background behind the images remained black, as well.

Again, the app just works. That is all.

Google Voice.

This is the other app that I'm going to forgo. The reason, to be blunt, is that Gvoice irritates the hell out of me. And i'm not going to go through the hassle of setting it up. Suffice it to say, all of the other apps are 99% flawless. What are the chances that this one is screwed up? If you use Gvoice, install it.

Google Now

Swipe up from your lock screen, or home screen, and you are presented with Google Now. The underlying background is the same dark grey you get for your menu in the other apps, with the cards being completely blacked out. I would have liked to see some kind of border here, on the bottom, if not completely wrapped around. It would have made it a little easier for me to tell the individual cards at a glance.

Your primary text on the card is white, with secondary being grey. And the icons for sports teams, system apps, and weather remain stock. Tapping the mic on the black search bar brings up the obligatory black screen, with the read soundwave, or whatever you'd like to call it, surrounding the icon in the upper right. Voice functions are as good as they have been, with no lag. One thing I did notice, sending a test text to my wife, after I pressed send, a white screen popped up for a second. It was web results. I think I would have liked to see that themed to black, as well. But, I'm pretty sure that doing so would require theming google search itself. Something, as of yet, not included in the package.

Google Currents

This is the other app that was themed by someone other than Tun_sd. This one goes to Sn1per.

Opening up the app, you have your black background, along with the icons for each of your feeds, and white text. Switching over to trending, you wind up with the black background with white text and holo blue subtext.

Hitting a feed in your library, I noticed the background to be hit or miss. The Verge came up with a white background, as did The Daily Beast. Whereas Space.com and 500px both had black backrounds... Not sure if that is feed based, or what is going on there. I tend to believe that it is feed based, since it seems to depend on the content itself, more than the general app layout.

OK. Now the nonGapps

People.

Open it up, and the first thing you see is the bright blue header. I want to say it's holo, but it seems a little bright for that. I will say I would probably like that one to be toned down, just a touch. Night time viewing still makes it a little glaring on the eyes. That aside, the hue carries over to the icons in that section, with a white underlining (a la Play store) to indicate which subheader you are working with. Going down, Primary dividers are separated with the same holo blue (real holo, instead of the superbright version) text and separators. Secondaries retain the light grey. Text is bright white. Under the alphabetized listings, this translates to the letter breaks are in blue, and individual names are in grey, with white text and icon photos. You maintain the blue indexing tab, and the pop up letters that come up as you scroll are on a translucesnt grey background with white text.

Open up the contact, and you have the same bright header up top. If the contact is starred, it is white. If not, the star is a slightly darker shade of blue.

The headers for each section are also the holo blue, with blue text. The text in the section remains white. The overall background isn't black, so much as a VERY dark grey.

MIUI Music

Having not used MIUI before, I'm going to be doing this review without any comparisons to the non themed version.

The UI seems to be similar to Play Music, in the way it's set up, if not in the graphics, themselves. In the upper left, you have the total number of songs on your Sdcard, and a large graphic (a musical note, in my case) taking up the upper half of the screen. Below that, you have a breakdown of your music, all of which are black background under white text, with the barely noticeable separators. Clicking on one of them (artists, for this example) shows the content, with an overall count of that section in the upper left. If you use the right side alphabetical scroll tab, it shows a toast box that is holo blue, with the letter in white text. One thing I did notice was that the indexing tab didn't seem to move, along with the scrolling. It stayed on “A” the entire time for me. Bringing up a song, brings up the album art, and controls, along with the song title. No separators here, but a slight difference in color between the 5 icons that control the info, playlist toggle, eq, loop toggle, and shuffle toggle, and the back, play/pause and forward controls. Right below that, where there is a separator, there seems to be a repeat of the title. But it is so dark that it is pretty much useless. I'm not sure if that is something to do with the app, or the way the theme was made.

Calculator

Not a whole lot to talk about here. The buttons are outlined in greyish white, with a nice fade to disappearing at the bottom. The characters are holo blue, and nice and large. The menu is the same slightly lighter grey with separator and white text. Functional, basic, quick to use.

Calendar

The initial display still defaults to weekly view, which I haven't bothered to change. But, instead of the glaring white/grey, you get a solid black grid with the days separated by holo blue grid lines. The top text, including month/year, calendar icon, and overflow menu are all in a muted grey. The days of the week are a little different, from what I was expecting, with the weekdays being in white, and the weekend in holo blue. I guess Tun is excited for the weekend. Either way, if you have a mon-fri job, it makes for a nice differentiation at a glance.

Swapping to month view, holidays are color coded to a brown bar. Not my personal favorite, but that can obviously be changed in settings. And the day you are on is highlighted in holo blue. Clicking on the day, and the event (holiday in this case) is also highlighted in the same brown, with white text. The hour separators are the same holo blue.

Adding an event, your default email address is selected in a darker blue, almost purple, and whatever line you are editing is underlined in holo. Beyond that, the text is either grey or white, depending on the section. Pop up menus for each section is the same slightly lighter shade of grey, with white text

Messaging

Completely black background here. Holo separator, at the top, then the grey ones throughout the rest of the theme. Clicking on the icon brings up the individual's message history, with the same separator layout.

This version of messaging is the CM10 version that has the pop up option. Again, theme conflicts can cause an issue, here. There have been a few instances of the messages running off the side, on the pop up. If that happens to you, check the theme.

As for the pop up, itself, you get two holo separators. One on top, just below the contact info, and one on bottom, just above the close and view buttons. Clicking on the reply section underlines it in the same holo, and pops your keyboard up. Once again, no glitches or hangs on either aspect of the app, save for the aforementioned text overflow.

I'm pretty sure that covers all of the apps.

I'm also very sure you will enjoy them, thoroughly. Aside from a few minor inconsistencies, they are outstanding. And, in this user's opinion, the best out there.

In summary, you have this:

A group of people who are very receptive to bugs, and not shy about admitting the few that do crop up. Once they know about them, they are very aggressive in fixing them.

You have a very well themed set of apps, that are clean and pretty consistent across the board.

And you have a set of apps that just work. No glitches, or performance issues.