The configuration options are very broad. For instance, you can set a profile to turn on every second weekday at 3:00 PM and 9:00 PM. These combinations allow for limitless options, and you can setup your Hero just the way you want it for optimum use. Changing things around and seeing which profile is active is pretty easy. It’s also very light on your battery, so it doesn’t drain your HTC Hero’s power as it makes changes based on your profiles. An innovative and powerful utility for the HTC Hero.

Formatting is important in a mobile RSS reader, and Greed doesn’t fall short in this matter either. Text is clear and flows well around images and native formatting elements. Greed also works with your folders on the Google Reader account, faithfully representing them on your HTC Hero. New articles are clearly highlighted, and an unread count lets you know where you are running behind on your reading. A simple and highly effective RSS reader app for your Hero.

The homescreen widget is very convenient and you can easily send updates without opening up the app every time. The interface is well-designed and easy-to-use, but there’s no way to customize aspects of it. For instance, the font and the color choices can appear a little washed-out, making it hard to read the app in bright light, even on the Hero’s excellent screen. Otherwise, it works quite well and is a good start if you’re looking for a basic Facebook experience on your Hero. If you’re a little more adventurous, give Bloo a shot.

Each sport you are tracking is presented on a grid on the main screen. The app integrates will with your Android smartphone’s notification system – so you can configure it to ping you whenever a relatively important News bit arrives or when the scores change. There’s even a nice widget you can run on your homescreen that’ll show you your favorite team’s and related News without you needing to launch the app at all. SportsTap is a solid sports application for your HTC Hero.

The interface is easy-to-use and pretty straightforward. Controls are presented at the bottom of the screen and videos are available in landscape mode. You can mark content by starring them as favorites and later pull them up in their own dedicated section. Unfortunately there isn’t a way to see popular content as rated by others, and there’s no way to discuss or otherwise interact with the content. Overall, this is an excellent app for consuming content from TED on the Hero.

The interface is a little busy but very functional. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll begin to appreciate the wealth of features hidden in this app. You can see things of interest in three different ways – via a carousal interface, as a list, or on a simple map. Like most other local directory apps, Sherpa lets you see ratings, reviews, and other information concerning each establishment (including the address). The apps ability to learn your preferences as you go coupled with a powerful search feature that includes category-based filtering means that this app can easily replace all other local directory apps on your HTC Hero, and you won’t notice they’re gone.

ShopSavvy lets you configure alerts that will notify you when a product you want drops below a certain price level. Like with Amazon, you can create wishlists and otherwise categorize your products and shopping needs. You can also see user reviews for products written by other ShopSavvy users like you. There’s also the ability to pull up older scanned items, so you can even use it as an inventory app if you please. This is a fantastic use of the HTC Hero’s excellent camera, and this free app will make shopping much more fun.

You can set conditions for as many places as you like. You can even create conditions that depend on the time of day in addition to the location – so if you’re in university, you can have the ringer switch to vibrate just in your class hours and switch back on at other times even when you’re in the classroom. The interface is simple and easy-to-use, basically you set your conditions and forget about them. The app takes care of the rest. This award-winning Android app is a must-have for all HTC Hero owners.

Note that the number of notifications on your Hero can increase quickly as you begin to add categories. Some categories like the Starbucks one may trigger a notification every block (ha ha). However, since notifications specific to Aloqa are completely configurable, so you can have them remain unobtrusive if you prefer. Overall, this is an innovative addition to the local directory applications available on the Android market.

There’s a little radar-like graphic in the app that let’s you know which direction you should point your HTC Hero to pick up points of interest. You can switch between an ordered view or a map view in addition to the layered view. Some of the layers offer interactive options including the ability to make a phone call with a single tap. “Layars” that already work include Google Local, Wikipedia, and Flickr. Many more are on the way. Layar is one of the more futuristic HTC Hero Apps to hit the Android market.