The HTC One M9’s custom nav bar lets you add extra buttons, or hide it altogether [VIDEO]

We’ve got to spend a lot of time with the HTC One M9 these past few days. During this time, we’ve been exploring all the ins and outs of its new software, HTC’s new and improved Sense 7. One of the more noteworthy new features (we already showed you guys every single new theme) we found was the new custom navigation bar.

Now, on most Android devices you have the typical Android software buttons — back, home, and recents — that rest along the bottom of the screen. For Sense 7 update, HTC is finally putting those software buttons to good use by giving users the ability to customize, not only their placement, but squeeze an extra button in the nav bar as well.

The function of this extra button can be changed to a few options: turn off screen, auto rotate, notifications, or (our personal favorite) hide the navigation bar completely. We know what you’re thinking, if the navigation bar is hidden, how will you navigate around the UI? Easy. Simply swipe up from the bottom HTC black bezel bar (see, it does have a function) and it reappears again.

Also worth pointing out is how great the “turn off screen” and “notifications” button could be for those with smaller hands who have difficulty reaching the notification drawer or power button on their device. The best part, once Sense 7 begins rolling out to older devices — like the HTC One M8 where the physical power button was tough to reach even for us — you should have no problem at all using the phone 1-handed.

Apparently this feature can also be found on the LG G3, even if HTC believes hiding the nav bar is a never-before-seen feature exclusive to the One M9. You can take a look at the new custom nav bar in our video down below.

Update: A previous version of this post incorrectly stated this feature was exclusive to the One M9. We’ve since updated the post to include the LG G3 as well.

Use Appeer to get Android apps from Google Play based on custom tailored personal social recommendations

Appeer from Austin, Texas, launched their Android app recommendation platform today. Appeer aims to create a personalized app discovery experience for it’s users, by utilizing an algorithm for app recommendations versus your typical methods found on Google Play, such as browsing through popular app categories (which can sometimes be worthless crap). Appeer prides themselves on providing organic app recommendations instead of sponsored recommendations found on similar platforms. So, how does it work? Let’s find out.

Appeer looks and feels much like a cross between a social networking app and your average app store. You’ll find your own personal recommendations, which are custom tailored for you, based on who you’re following, and the apps that you currently have installed. If 3 or more people have an app that you don’t have, the app gets recommended to you. You can find people to follow on your own for recommendations, though Appeer will automatically follow users that appear to be similar to you based on the apps and games that you have installed.

While it’s nice to have the app automatically find new followers for you, I’d prefer being able to follow friends that I already follow across other social networks like Google+, Twitter, or Facebook. Sure, you can tell all of your friends to follow you by providing them your username or sharing your profile URL, but it would be nice if this feature was built in and done automatically for you as part of the profile building and social discovery process. The developers did mention that this was the ultimate goal and may be coming in a future update.

Your timeline is your social app stream, which gets populated by recommendations through your social circle. Once you find an app you’d like, you can tap on the app to read more, and then continue on to the Play Store for installation. If you’d like to save the app for later, you can tap the bookmark icon, and the app will be moved to that section for safe keeping. Additionally, you’ll receive push notifications that appear in the status bar that allows for easy bookmarking.

Finding new apps can sometimes be difficult given the sheer size of the Google Play Store along with the amount of new applications hitting the store on a daily basis. Is Appeer something that I’ll continue to use in the long run? I’m not sure, but for now, it’s an interesting idea and the whole swarm notification feature is pretty cool too. To get started, head on over to the Google Play Store to install Appeer. Good luck!

How to create custom themes on the HTC One M9 [VIDEO]

In our hands-on with the HTC One M9 we talked about the new software features in Sense 7. They added a new widget that identifies where you are and shows the apps you will need, smart folders, and a cool new way to create custom themes. HTC has used themes in the past, but in Sense 7 they’re making it really easy for everyone to create super personalized themes.

The HTC One M9 comes with a bunch of pre-installed themes out of the box, but if you’re not a fan of those you can create your own. In fact, Sense 7 can create a personalized theme for you. All you have to do is take a photo. Sense will then identify colors from that photo and change accent colors, icons, and even system sounds. Here you can see a theme Chris made from a photo of flowers.

As we mentioned above, there are a number of pre-installed themes to choose from. You can see all of them right here. We love the level of customization HTC has added to Sense. Android is great for customizing, and this makes it really easy. Check out the video above to see how to create a custom theme from a photo. Would you use this feature?