By 
HipLogic’s *Spark is a homescreen replacement application with a focus on real-time data streams providing you with up-to-date news, weather, and streams from your social networks. After a few months of beta testing the app has landed in the Android Market free of charge, and among its improvements and enhancements comes support from a bevy of media partners. CBS News, Twitter, Facebook, Weatherbug, and Groupon are all on board plus more. Of note, *Spark will be the only official means to access Groupon deals in the UK via an Android app.
[via AndroidGuys]
I feel like this would rape my battery. I intentionally don’t use widgets and apps that constantly pull info from the web in the background.
I kinda like it, kinda don’t. It feels quite similar to SlideScreen which I like for a couple of days then went straight back to ADW.
If they released this just in scrollable widget form then I would jump straight on it.
jer,
Totally understand your trepidation about using “active” widgets and apps – especially when it comes to battery rape.
What we did was actually design it so that when it sleeps in the background, it ACTUALLY sleeps. Also, we only pull info when you want to see it (every minute to once a day – your choice.)
Give it a try, and tell us what you think. :)
Spark as a scrollable widget is not a bad idea…
Realy liked the lay out, but locking android in to one screen is pointless..
I like the idea of this as a widget, or for me, I think it would make a good lock screen. I just prefer to have access to more stuff more easily.
I’m of the same mind as others here. I love this concept, but I’m not really keen on it being a whole home replacement. If this were a series of scrollable widgets, social, deals, news, etc, I would download it immediately. I would even pay a good price for this, up to five dollars if it worked well. There really isn’t a replacement for FriendStream and the like on the Market, and making this a widget would fill that void nicely. I could easily see this being a highly recommended first download for any phone, in the same vein as Beautiful Widgets. I know the dev has put a lot of work into making this a home replacement, and I appreciate the creativity in that, but I beg of them to make a scrollable widget version for those of us who want to keep our launchers, but have a couple of screen panels we’d love to dedicate to this.
HipLogic: The fact that you took the time to personally respond is enough to get me to try it out.
My point is that typically I don’t want it to ever pull info unless I open the app. For example, I don’t use a Twitter widget. If I want to read Twitter I open it up and it loads the latest updates. Same with news or Facebook or anything else. Sure, I could set it to only refresh every few hours but what’s the point? If I want to read it I will open the app/website. If I’m not reading it then I don’t need it to update at all.
@jer, if you don’t want it to update constantly then this is “NOT” the app for you and you don’t have to download or use it. Use some sense instead of complaining about an app that others may enjoy. SHEESH, kids these days….
I like this idea a lot. I keep three home screens, but really only use the apps on my dock, and have to try and find stuff for my homescreen so i’m gonna give it a go. Plus they did respond like Jer said, which leaves me to believe the support on this app will be awesome.
@Gilgamesh – Gosh, guy who pissed in your Cherrios? He was just stating an opinion which, legally, everyone has the right to have.
Personally I love the 1 locked screen concept. Iused to use several screens and after awhile it became too much and overwhelming for me, not to mention all the battery drain because of all the running widgets. So I’ve set my phone to 1 screen and have only used 1 screen for months now. Now that this launcher has come out of beta I am in love with it! Although now I wish I had the original wallpaper because I liked it best! Is there a way you can post that wallpaper so I can use it? Its using my default wallpaper and I want to use the *Spark wallpaper. Can’t wait for more updates!