Reaching the Next Young Heart

GOTO Lockscreen is a cool lock screen replacement for your Android phone. Boasting a gorgeous UI and the ability to directly open email, messaging or dialler apps, it matches good looks with neat functionality. There are a number of other little customizations too, including the ability to change the background on your lock screen. If your lock screen is looking a bit drab, this might just be the replacement you’re looking for.
Price: $1.49
Tested on: HTC Desire HD
Content Rating: Low Maturity
Pros
Ability to open apps directly from your lock screen… Convenient!Shows missed calls, number of emails and messages!Responsive UI that really looks good!
Cons
A little awkward to set up.Notifications are not always shown.No music control on lock screen.No skins.
GOTO Lockscreen is an aesthetically pleasing yet functional lock screen alternative to Android. As I’m sure you’re aware the default Android lock screen, or that of some of the manufacturers, is pretty boring. Sure, it’s a lock screen, so it does its job and makes sure your phone doesn’t do a load of random stuff when you put it in your pocket or handbag. But that’s pretty much all it does. This is where lock screen replacement apps come in.
WidgetLocker is particularly well known, and allows you to add a number of shortcuts on your lock screen- adding a host of functions and possibly improving the productivity of your phone. Now, and maybe this is just me, WidgetLocker is brilliantly functional, but it doesn’t look that good does it? It’s just a bit too Froyo…
GOTO Lockscreen is about as sexy as a lock screen can get. It has really cool effects, a nice unlock sound and a lush look to it. It’s not all beauty either, you can also open up your phone, Gmail or SMS text messages directly from the lock screen too. There are notifications of the time, in addition to a smart little weather icon. Further to this you can set your own background image.
What makes the app look even better is the tiny animations of the lock screen icons. They basically pop up and animate: an SMS will write some lines, the phone icon will shake and the email envelope will reveal the Gmail icon. All happens quickly and looks very cool. So; functional, good-looking and customizable… but it’s not quite all plain sailing.
Before you rush to the Market, you might want to consider the few irks I found with the app. Firstly, it’s a bit of a pain to set up. You have to initially set GOTO Lockscreen as your default launcher- which feels incredibly unnatural. For some reason the app auto-disables your Home button- now, while you can re-enable it, I found you literally have to reset your phone for the Home button to function again.
Something else which might be annoying is that it doesn’t support music control. So, if you’re playing music, there are no controls on the lock screen itself. I mention this because obviously many people use their smartphones as music players now, and this could irritate.
Also, while I personally think the lock screen looks great, there is no way to alter it in any way beyond changing the background image. Other alternative lock screen applications- such as Lock 2.0, allow for downloading of various skins to change the look and feel of it. GOTO doesn’t have this functionality, which is a shame.
So, while GOTO Lockscreen looks pretty amazing its let down by a few little issues that may put people off downloading it, especially as it is a paid app.  The comments from users on the Android Market seem similarly divided, some adore the app, others complain about similar issues to the ones I found. The thing is, this is a ‘Personalisation’ app really, and it may or may not suit you personally.

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It doesn’t add too much functionality to your phone, and if you have say- WidgetLocker or the HTC Sense 3+ lock screen, it might somewhat limit your lock screen functionality. However, if you are stuck with a simplistic default lock screen and want something with a ‘bit more’, GOTO Lockscreen provides a good blend of usefulness and good looks.
Once GOTO Lockscreen is set up it’s fine, but it’s a bit of a pain to get configured. I found its actually best to shut your phone down after making a setting for it to work- awkward, but once it’s set up it works great.
You’ll use it every time you use your phone. The shortcuts to phone, SMS and email are good, so the app cuts corners for you- taking you straight to the app you want.
The UI is a real highlight of the app and is (probably) the best looking lock screen available on the Android Market. The smooth and rich feel to the screen itself is complimented by the responsive icon animations and quality sounds.