Lawnchair looks to be the closest that has/does most things I want except for being able to assign custom actions to swiping up/down on icons on my home screen. It's one of those little things...
Lawnchair looks to be the closest that has/does most things I want except for being able to assign custom actions to swiping up/down on icons on my home screen. It's one of those little things that lets me access related apps without having to do extra taps or add extra clutter.
I just tried it, but I do like using widgets. That seems to be really clunkily solved in kvaesitso - a 1x1 widget takes up the full width of the screen, basically having a 4x1 frame around it. The...
I just tried it, but I do like using widgets. That seems to be really clunkily solved in kvaesitso - a 1x1 widget takes up the full width of the screen, basically having a 4x1 frame around it. The search with options for calculator and timer and so on seems really nice though.
Afaik you can make widgets just use the normal space they normally do. I use a few, but I never used that many so that might make it a better replacement for me.
Afaik you can make widgets just use the normal space they normally do. I use a few, but I never used that many so that might make it a better replacement for me.
The main alternative reddit has settled on is Octopi Launcher which I've been using on/off for the better part of a year now. Pros: Constantly in development Pretty customisable No ads or tracking...
The main alternative reddit has settled on is Octopi Launcher which I've been using on/off for the better part of a year now.
Pros:
Constantly in development
Pretty customisable
No ads or tracking (or paid version)
Cons:
UX just feels off I don't know how to describe it but it feels still like a work in progress
Very much a fan of Niagara. It really keeps things clean and simple. Would love to buy and support, but I can't afford what the Pro version costs at the moment.
Very much a fan of Niagara. It really keeps things clean and simple. Would love to buy and support, but I can't afford what the Pro version costs at the moment.
+1...ish on Niagara. Decent launcher, better than most in this niche category. But, the pace of development is incredibly slow and their feature updates are a bit scattered on non-essential...
+1...ish on Niagara. Decent launcher, better than most in this niche category. But, the pace of development is incredibly slow and their feature updates are a bit scattered on non-essential things. Been with them since their first launch, was grandfathered in on their original plan ($5/year - $15 lifetime? something like that) but found that lately its become more error-ridden. Very little in the way of customization, so you have to subscribe to their system, which isn't bad but it's not perfect, and by and large better than the alternative in their category.
@creesh mentioned kvaesitsu (which is IMPOSSIBLE for me to remember/spell) and its great and very customizable, but that can be a negative as it is very easy to 1) mess it all up and 2) not understand what you are modifying. It is also surprisingly customizable, and not at the same time, which can be infuriating. Settings and toggles won't always match up to what you logically think they would (the 'search' bar style being one of those...).
If I could just set Firefox as my launcher, and search/pin apps as I do websites, than that would be great, but alas, this is not the case lol.
Another janky thing with Niagara is that if you purchase the pro version, they limit the number of devices that it will run on simultaneously. I think the limit is 3 devices, because I was running...
Another janky thing with Niagara is that if you purchase the pro version, they limit the number of devices that it will run on simultaneously. I think the limit is 3 devices, because I was running it on my phone, tablet, gaming handheld, and my car's head unit, and which ever device I used least recently would always give me an error message on the home screen saying I needed to manually re-verify my device (which I'm guessing called home to some kind of server to tie that device to my purchase on Google Play). Of course, re-verifying that device would then produce the same error on the next-least-recently-used device. I contacted them and I believe they bumped the limit for me specifically up to 4 devices now (the error went away until the next time I re-formatted one of my devices, at which point I saw it once and then it stopped again). It's not a huge deal, but something that might be worth knowing if anyone else with more than 3 devices is considering it.
It used to be my go to launcher on Android for many a year, but had been moribund for some time. I found that choosing a launcher that did what I wanted was a thankless task. Moved to iOS instead....
It used to be my go to launcher on Android for many a year, but had been moribund for some time. I found that choosing a launcher that did what I wanted was a thankless task. Moved to iOS instead. Drastic.
I did the same until earlier this year. I decided to mix it up for no particular reason and have found it to be different but not inherently better. No real reason to change it if you don't feel...
I did the same until earlier this year. I decided to mix it up for no particular reason and have found it to be different but not inherently better.
No real reason to change it if you don't feel like it, in my opinion. There isn't that much productivity increase available.
Oh man this is a bummer. I knew it was coming but thought I could ride it out for a while... I do need to replace my phone in the nearish future, so maybe I'll deal with it then.
Oh man this is a bummer. I knew it was coming but thought I could ride it out for a while... I do need to replace my phone in the nearish future, so maybe I'll deal with it then.
What a huge loss, this is my go to launcher. Not looking forward to finding an alternative at this point.
Another good option is Lawnchair, which is closer to Nova than most others. It's open-source and under active development.
Lawnchair looks to be the closest that has/does most things I want except for being able to assign custom actions to swiping up/down on icons on my home screen. It's one of those little things that lets me access related apps without having to do extra taps or add extra clutter.
I have landed on kvaesitso. It works on a different principle though with everything scrolling down, it did manage to replace nova for me though.
I just tried it, but I do like using widgets. That seems to be really clunkily solved in kvaesitso - a 1x1 widget takes up the full width of the screen, basically having a 4x1 frame around it. The search with options for calculator and timer and so on seems really nice though.
Afaik you can make widgets just use the normal space they normally do. I use a few, but I never used that many so that might make it a better replacement for me.
The main alternative reddit has settled on is Octopi Launcher which I've been using on/off for the better part of a year now.
Pros:
Constantly in development
Pretty customisable
No ads or tracking (or paid version)
Cons:
UX just feels off I don't know how to describe it but it feels still like a work in progress
Very much a fan of Niagara. It really keeps things clean and simple. Would love to buy and support, but I can't afford what the Pro version costs at the moment.
+1...ish on Niagara. Decent launcher, better than most in this niche category. But, the pace of development is incredibly slow and their feature updates are a bit scattered on non-essential things. Been with them since their first launch, was grandfathered in on their original plan ($5/year - $15 lifetime? something like that) but found that lately its become more error-ridden. Very little in the way of customization, so you have to subscribe to their system, which isn't bad but it's not perfect, and by and large better than the alternative in their category.
@creesh mentioned kvaesitsu (which is IMPOSSIBLE for me to remember/spell) and its great and very customizable, but that can be a negative as it is very easy to 1) mess it all up and 2) not understand what you are modifying. It is also surprisingly customizable, and not at the same time, which can be infuriating. Settings and toggles won't always match up to what you logically think they would (the 'search' bar style being one of those...).
If I could just set Firefox as my launcher, and search/pin apps as I do websites, than that would be great, but alas, this is not the case lol.
Another janky thing with Niagara is that if you purchase the pro version, they limit the number of devices that it will run on simultaneously. I think the limit is 3 devices, because I was running it on my phone, tablet, gaming handheld, and my car's head unit, and which ever device I used least recently would always give me an error message on the home screen saying I needed to manually re-verify my device (which I'm guessing called home to some kind of server to tie that device to my purchase on Google Play). Of course, re-verifying that device would then produce the same error on the next-least-recently-used device. I contacted them and I believe they bumped the limit for me specifically up to 4 devices now (the error went away until the next time I re-formatted one of my devices, at which point I saw it once and then it stopped again). It's not a huge deal, but something that might be worth knowing if anyone else with more than 3 devices is considering it.
It used to be my go to launcher on Android for many a year, but had been moribund for some time. I found that choosing a launcher that did what I wanted was a thankless task. Moved to iOS instead. Drastic.
Took a while, but I am not suprised
Nooo, saw this coming and still didn't prepare.
Have been with Nova since my first android phone, Galaxy S2 in 2011. :(
Apparently I'm the only person here who uses my OEM's stock launcher?
I did the same until earlier this year. I decided to mix it up for no particular reason and have found it to be different but not inherently better.
No real reason to change it if you don't feel like it, in my opinion. There isn't that much productivity increase available.
Okay. Fine. I'll finally stop being lazy and replace my nova launcher. Thanks everyone for your suggestions of alternatives!
Oh man this is a bummer. I knew it was coming but thought I could ride it out for a while... I do need to replace my phone in the nearish future, so maybe I'll deal with it then.