Cyanogen to bring Theme Showcase app to Play Store on June 16

Slim UI CM11 theme by Nikolai Prettner

One of the biggest new features on the CyanogenMod-running  OnePlus One is the new theming engine, which lets you quickly apply style elements such as fonts and boot animations or entire themes that give your device a fresh unitary look.

Now Cyanogen Inc. is bringing the Theme Showcase app to other CM devices, opening it for all theme designers interested in the project.

According to Cyanogen Inc’s community manager Brian Resnik, Theme Showcase will hit the Play Store on June 16. Designers who wish to have their work showcased when the app launches can submit their themes by following the guidelines here. The themes or individual elements will be made available through the Play Store and they can be free or paid-for. Individual elements can include wallpapers, lockscreens, fonts, styles, boot animations, and sounds.

Cyanogen promised that Theme Showcase will be updated with new content every Thursday, so customization addicts will want to check back to the app frequently.

CyanogenMod merges Voice Plus, integrates Google Voice with third- party SMS apps

Google Voice SMS users, you’re dream
of a singular text messaging solution
has come true. The CyanogenMod team
has, with the help of prolific Android
developer Koushick Dutta (Koush),
merged a workaround that allows any
application to send SMS messages
through Google Voice. The feature isn’t
compatible with stock ROMs, but those
able and willing to root their devices
now have a simpler way to funnel all
messages through Google’s venerable
phone service.
This isn’t exactly new. Koush the
contributed the framework that allows
other apps to “talk” with Google Voice
to CyanogenMod earlier this month;
CyanogenMod builds after July 1 st
contained the requisite code. However,
actually enabling Voice integration
required manually pushing an app as a
system application, a process which,
though not extraordinarily difficult
for some, wasn’t the most
straightforward. Going forward,
Koush’s app – Voice Plus – will be
included in stock CyanogenMod, and
only require installation of the Google
Voice app and a one-time Google Voice
account sign-in to work.
Once Voice Plus is configured, both
first-party (Messaging) and third-
party (Handcent, Go SMS Pro, Chomp
SMS, etc.) messaging clients will
forward all SMS messages to Google
Voice. Koush and CyanogenMod’s
implementation doesn’t overcome the
limitations of Google Voice itself – MMS
isn’t supported, for example – but
certainly is, until Google begins to
consolidate its various messaging
services, a good solution to a
longstanding problem.