Although my ‘Theme’ Shoppe will be no more, I still have great plans for my Shoppe. More details to come at a later date.

As a result of the ‘test drive’ experience I had with my sister’s old iPhone earlier this year, I did not encounter the learning curve most individuals face whilst switching device platforms and such. Moreover, I found the out-of-box experience with my iPhone to be virtually painless. However, even given all my months of preparations for this switch, I was still blown away when I unboxed my iPhone 4 and turned it on. RETINA DISPLAY. That feature alone deserves its own (fragmented) sentence and cap lock abuse, seriously. As I like to call it, retina display is ultimate clarity packaged in a big bag of awesome sauce.

Smartphone euphoria aside, it should be noted that due to my platform switch and the fact that my theme muse ditched me months ago, I am no longer designing new BlackBerry themes. Nonetheless, my Shoppe will remain open for those who are interested in purchasing any of the high-quality, designer themes featured within its cyber brick-and-mortar walls.

That “never say never” attitude is back with a vengeance with my new theme series Driven. The series consists of three themes: iCreate, iGrow and iHope, all of which act as sequels of sort to my previously released iOS-inspired theme, iReflect. All three themes are available exclusively in the Shoppe for $5.75 each.

Driven is essentially one theme available in three different accent colors: orange, green and blue— iCreate, iGrow and iHope, respectfully. Despite theme names and appearances, the blatant New Age overtones featured throughout these themes only began to dawn on me during the latter phases of development, go figure. The Home Screen layout featured in this series is a mash-up of Apple’s iOS ‘home screen’, wherein instead of the customary glass-dock-and-icons setup (as featured in iReflect), I have exchanged it for a compact toolbar, usually featured within iOS apps. Paired with this toolbar is the same slim, shaded banner previously featured in iReflect, thus rounding off the very clean, streamline appearance of this series’ Home Screen layout. The seven button-icons* showcased in the Home Screen toolbar: Messages, Calendar, Contacts, BlackBerry Messenger, Browser, Pictures and Options are static, which is to say that they are not user customizable. Both the Messages and Calendar icons synchronize up with a 10-entry Hidden Today area featured in the space above. A bonus feature to the Hidden Today area in my Driven themes is a shaded backdrop that will appear in conjunction with your hidden today Calendar entries, thus ensuring that your upcoming appointments are always legible, regardless of your preset wallpaper.

In addition to its slick toolbar, the Home Screen also features a couple of keyboard shortcuts** (i.e. hotkeys) for further functionality and convenience. To quickly access your Profiles and SMS/MMS inbox simply press “F” and “$”, respectfully. Per usual with the themes featured here at Artistic Me, all three Driven themes are very wallpaper friendly and look fantastic with a wide array of background images. The presence of both the compact banner and toolbar even create the illusion of a widescreen display, thus presenting a perfect way to display your HD wallpapers. Perhaps my favorite feature in this theme series is its default Home Screen background image, one of my newest designs, “Mystic Terrain”, a mystically colorful landscape wallpaper that acts as the focal point for each theme. The beautiful works by Chuck Anderson of No Pattern Studio, were my inspiration whilst designing “Mystic Terrain”.

Other notable iOS-inspired features in my Driven theme series include a custom black-on-silver icon set, fully skinned Active and Incoming Call screens and Helvetica Neue font type used throughout. (However, the message lists fonts are user customizable, per usual.) In addition, my customary ‘screen dimming’ feature is present in the Lock Screen, which allows your User Info to appear more legibly over your preset wallpaper.

All in all this theme series consists of my all-time favorite themes to date, which is a fitting sentiment, especially in regards to my following announcement. Aside from how well these themes turned out, designing and developing this theme series was bittersweet, to say the least. As mentioned on my Twitter page recently, this series will mostly likely be my final contribution the BlackBerry theme community. Given my impending switch to an iPhone 4 and several other factors, my interest in BlackBerry theme development has dwindled drastically as of late. Nonetheless, I am very proud and happy of the corpus of themes that I was able to contribute to the BlackBerry community these past few years. Although I have no immediate plans to continue making new BlackBerry themes, my Shoppe will remain up and active for all those interested in purchasing any of my high-quality, designer BlackBerry themes.

*Some icons featured in the Home Screen toolbar are courtesy of Glyphish.

**In order for the hotkey features to work accordingly, you must disable the ‘Dial from Home Screen’ option within your Phone settings.

Notice: I do not distribute the original wallpapers featured in my themes. I design and/or incorporate these wallpapers specifically for their designated theme(s) only. As such, these wallpapers are only available within the themes themselves; they are not available separately and/or à la carte. Sorry.

So, to current and/or prospective customers, please be sure to read, acknowledge and abide by the terms mentioned on this page:

TERMS OF USE

Cutting to the chase, my love affair with BlackBerry smartphones has come to a bitter end. For the past several months RIM’s stale hardware and software offerings to the otherwise booming smartphone market have left me wholly unimpressed. In retrospect, it was the [poor] release of their BlackBerry Tour 9630 that proved to be the last straw for me. The honeymoon period with my Tour lasted a grand total of four months before I became utterly bored, not to mention frustrated, with RIM’s very dated devices and operating software. (In comparison, the honeymoon period with my first BlackBerry, an 8830, lasted well over a year’s time.) Subsequently, my disdain towards BlackBerry devices grew tenfold with each passing week until I finally reached a point where I honestly felt that I wasted my money on the Tour. Warranted buyer’s remorse is the worst feeling for a consumer to experience, especially in this sort of economy. To make matters worst, people around me were upgrading from their dated BlackBerry devices to shiny, new Android-equipped smartphones—serious jealousy ensued on my part.

Quickly after its launch last summer, it became apparent that the now defunct Tour 9630 was not ready for its much publicized release on various CDMA carriers. Plagued by numerous reports of defective trackballs, LED screens, battery doors and so on, the Tour will arguably go down in history as the BlackBerry-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Moreover, RIM’s announcement of the Tour2 …err Bold 9650, mere months after the Tour’s launch, left many once loyal BlackBerry users (like myself) seething with anger at the company’s apparent greed over customer satisfaction. RIM’s fragmented (read: half-assed) device and OS ‘updates’ for the past few years definitely haven’t garnered them many cool points within the tech world and their customer base. They are simply moving much too slowly to release an über modern device powered by an innovative mobile OS. In my opinion, RIM has yet to offer something truly worthy of competing with the likes of Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android mobile platforms that are currently dominating today’s smartphone market.

Now for the big reveal: I plan on switching to an iPhone 4 sometime later this summer.

*gasps*

I’ve had the opportunity to play around with my sister’s old, deactivated iPhone for the past few months and I’m sold. I truly love EVERYTHING about this smartphone platform. It also doesn’t hurt that a vast majority of the websites that I frequent and companies that I do business with have [good] apps readily available in Apple’s App Store. I’m basically using this deactivated iPhone in the same capacity as one would use an iPod Touch (i.e. connected via Wi-Fi). However, even in its ‘crippled’ state, it is quite apparent to me that the ‘iPhone experience’ supersedes my nearly three years as a BlackBerry user.

The tech world’s been abuzz with speculation over whether or not the iPhone will finally make its way to additional carriers in the U.S. sooner than originally anticipated. In truth, this feverish debate between market analysts and tech enthusiasts alike isn’t new to the discussion of the iPhone’s ‘limited’ availability here in the States. Even still, I can only hope for this device to make its way to another carrier, like Verizon, this fall—one of the more popular rumors surrounding the iPhone as of late. However, all rumors and speculation aside, I’m adamant in becoming an iPhone user by end of this year. While I’m aware of those BlackBerry users who’ve switched platforms only to return for some reason or another, don’t count on me contributing to that small statistic. Simply put, BlackBerry is not the smartphone platform for me anymore.

Obviously my decision to switch smarthphone platforms will ultimately affect my future in BlackBerry theme development. For the time being I still plan on developing new BlackBerry themes for select devices running OS 5.0 only and with the screen size resolution of 480 by 360 pixels. However, I cannot guarantee my continual participation in the BlackBerry theme community once I do finally switch to an iPhone.

UPDATE: I am no longer designing BlackBerry themes, sorry.