Facebook does a lot of things wrong, but one thing it has gotten right of late was the introduction of ‘Chat Heads‘ for their instant messaging client on Android.
Paranoid Android, a relative newcomer to the custom ROM scene, look to be adding support for Chat Heads for all notifications, as well as their own custom implementation of multiwindow multitasking. Unlike Samsung’s approach on their recent Galaxy devices, which splits the screen into two portions for two separate applications, PA are creating overlays in which the applications reside. Apparently, the benefits of this approach are that every application will work without any additional support from developers; and this particular method is unlikely to break anything, thus avoiding a crack-down from Google (who intervened when CyanogenMod were considering a similar system).
The feature looks pretty neat, and along with Pie controls, per-app DPI scaling and navigation elements that automatically change colours to reflect the colour schemes of different applications, Paranoid Android is really coming out as one of the most innovative custom ROMs. Even though Paranoid Android may not have the support of CyanogenMod, it still has an impressive list of supported devices including the entire Nexus line (except for Nexus 10) and many other popular handsets (like Samsung’s Galaxies and quite a few HTC phones), and if your device is supported, PA is well worth a look-in. There are also a number of unofficial ports, but their stability may vary.
Chat heads and multiwindow support have not been added to builds of Paranoid Android yet, but you can check them out in action in the video below. To download Paranoid Android for your device, click here.
Lol hit up PAC ROM for the galaxy s2 and you’ll never go back …paranoid,aokp and cm10.1 all in one ..there are other devices too like the nexus 4 and more 🙂
Yeah- i know some people who swear by pac rom… will be interesting if they are able to incorporate these current changes into their rom. it is a very deep hack. I certainly hope so. Gotta love open source.
I used it on my S3, for maybe 2 hours or less. It was pretty buggy IMO. But to each their own.
yeah- I can’t imagine it’d be easy to take out bits and pieces from different roms and mash them all together- especially on a device with driver issues (ie. non-nexus). The Paranoid Android guys have said as much in the past few days.
We can always give them credit for trying. I’m sure the dev base isn’t as big and sophisticated as their counterparts either.