Android phones at their default state dont have a visible operator logo, this feature is something i missed from day one of owning my G1 and since i had always enjoyed seeing the operator logo as far back as the days of the nokia 3110 it soon became a mission to find a way of displaying the network providers logo for all to see ! – Yeah okay so may be thats a bit too dramatic but i still wanted to see it anyway LOL.
operator logo on full view & Gmail notification too !
Above is a shot of my Galaxy Tab with a clear to see image of the ORANGE-UK network operator logo, its there because i downloaded an app from the Android market called PHONO by Stefano from Info Net Services, its a free app although a donation app is also available at the cost of 52 pence in UK dosh and i suggest you pay for it so Stefano can continue to develop the app in the future.
Phono is a worldwide app and as such should work in all countries and show the correct logo for your network carrier, also it will display info about your roaming status which can be vital for some people. Phono works on all builds of Android too including Honeycomb, up until last week there was a bug with Honeycomb that made the notification faulty but that has been fixed by Stefano now, actually it was after i submitted a bug report and i must say the reply from Stefano was so quick, he replied to me tirelessly over the weekend and had Phono working on Honecomb within 24 hours, now thats accessibility in a developer, more power to Android and its developers.
I havent mentioned that Phono is not just a LOGO – its a fully featured app too showing a whole list of info about your device, including system info software and hardware info, signal strength etc – and there are homescreen widgets included too, the widgets come with themes and to be honest this is the only thing i think needs some improvement, i would prefer to see widgets that look as clean as the standard Android widgets for example the ‘News & Weather’ widget on the nexus one, but still the widgets included offer all the right info in the right place.
So all in all a great app from Info Net Services – please install it and see how you find it, and leave some feedback for Stefano too – he is without a doubt one of Androids best developers, find Phono online at http://phonoins.blogspot.com/
https://market.android.com/details?id=com.infonetservice.phono&feature=search_result
I should just add that if you do use PHONO on a Honeycomb tablet and have any issues please let me know, if the logo looks like its gone missing the chances are its not, its more likely that you have about 10 items in the notification bar and by selecting the notifications your logo will indeed re-appear – this is simply the way Honeycomb does notifications so dont worry.
Thanks again to Stefano for being a great developer and fixing Phono for all us Honeycomb tablet users. :)
