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Nova Launcher could soon add a proactive AI assistant that sucks up all your data

1mon 28d ago by fedia.io/u/ryujin470 in technology from www.androidauthority.com

Nova Launcher could soon introduce Nova AI, a built-in AI assistant complete with a chatbot, and a new Nova Plus subscription tier

there have been enough reasons to ditch nova in the past years, in case someone is still using it

I was still using it because I was too lazy to migrate things over to another.

And then I saw this post, so I guess it was time. Only took half an hour to figure out how to get Lawnchair doing basically what I wanted it to.

Octopi Launcher is damn near a replacement. Learn nothing new, muscle memory for swiping up or down on dock icons to open other apps.

Those were my requirements and it nails it.

Its a shame its not FOSS. Just checked it for trackers, and according to this site, there are none.

https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.otp.octopilauncher/latest/

Never heard of it but this thing looks fully featured and very polished. I'm surprised I haven't heard of it before since I've gone looking for decent launchers!

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.otp.octopilauncher

Switched to Octopi as well and had to configure it a little to get it setup but now I almost forget that I even switched

The one feature I use most of all on Nova is swipe down on the screen to search. I has that all the time and would be tough to give up. I also really like the ability to swipe up on a folder and have it launch the first app in the folder.

I'll give Octopi a try on an older phone and hopefully it has some of these same features.

Octopi two finger swipe from above is search apps.

In settings you can enable swipe to open a folder, tap to launch one app from it.

That was why I settled on Octopi

Lawnchair is darn close, and FOSS. Recommending another closed source option usually leads down the same road.

How can you tell whether or not something is FOSS in Google Play?

Unfortunately not easily. Most mention it in descriptions or have links to GitHub/etc. For me, I used to search FDroid to check but I'm pretty selective about the apps I use. Now I do most things through Obtainium, but as a Graphene user I'm certainly not the norm.

I couldn't find Lawnchair in F-Droid.

Sigh.. Lawnchair is the absolute worst of the worst for install/discovery. Because it got taken over by another developer, it's been all "beta" releases on GitHub forever, even though a truckload of people daily drive it.

https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair/releases

I've been daily driving it for a while and really want it to be better. Its hard to complain since it's FOSS, but one of my most used features from the old Lawnchair 2 version (tabs in the app drawer) hasn't been implemented in the new version since development was effectively reset/restarted.

Maybe it's time to move on and check out Octopi...

OK, so I don't recommend this often, but there is a FOSS option closer to Nova than Lawnchair. It's called Neo Launcher: https://github.com/neoapplications/neo-launcher

It may be worth a shot, I ran the release on GitHub for about a year. I stopped because the devs are doing this brainrot thing of putting releases as beta in their Discord, so the release file on GitHub is old. I hate that practice so much that I stopped recommending it, even though it's a slightly better launcher with more options IMO.

I appreciate the recommendation, however, I can't support any dev who uses Discord for releases/support. I'm doing what I can to move friends and family once a viable alternative is available. I know a bunch were being recommended a couple of weeks ago, but I need 80%+ feature parity and simple a install and use flow before most will consider it.

Yup, totally get it, it's why I don't use it. I have Lawnchair's GitHub URL added into Obtainium, so it's as simple as Play Store for updates.

Wow! This one wasn't on my radar. I had been using Action Launcher as it seemed to be the only other one that could do the swipe folders, but it seems to have been abandoned. I'll give this a go.

I'm trying out Octopi right now, seems nice so far. But, is there any way to make folders open the first app with a tap, and open the folder by swiping? That's how I used Nova for years and years, very hard to break away from that

It has it. It's in launcher settings "swipe up/down on folders to open them"

Thank you! Not sure how I missed that toggle, I guess my brain expected it to be somewhere in a sub-menu.

Just curious, would you then view the folder with a swipe down?

Not seeing a way to change folder tap but you could pbly request that. It's a single developer and I've been very happy to support them to get away from Nova. I've been using Octopi since last year and it's been great!

You can set up individual apps with swipe up and swipe down as well though, so if there's a main app in your folder you could break it out and at least get 2 other apps to open via swipes. Not the same I know.

I like for it to open folders with a swipe and open the first app of the folder with a tap. I have figured out how to do this in Octopi now thanks to the other reply! Although it becomes slightly an issue with how folders in the dock behave slightly differently than folders on the home pages. But I think it's close enough to be a workable replacement for Nova finally!

Whahahaha motherfucker you just made my day!

lawnchair is what I swapped to a few years back. I do want to warn.. be careful updating it. Always make a backup of lawnchair prior to allowing it to update because ive had it fail to update twice now and have had to restore the backup on the new version.

Yeah I switched to lawn chair a few months ago because I kept seeing these stories about Nova's parent company. I like it just fine—i haven't had the issues you have (thankfully)—but there are a few features I miss from nova. Oh well, I'd rather have the peace of mind than the minor feature.

Yeah the only words they needed in the headline were "Nova Launcher sucks"

Sadly my custom home screen depends on features I haven't found in any other launcher, so right now I just have internet disabled for it with trackercontrol :/

If crazy levels of customisation is the reason you use it, Total Launcher did the trick for me.

Thanks for the reccomendation, I'll take a look :)

Yeah its the customization features. A couple replies down I listed some of the features I use that I haven't seen in other launchers. I'll check out total launcher and see if it could work for me

No worries friend :)

You can place things anywhere down to the pixel, not just snapped to a grid like with Nova (though, there is option for a grid of apps, also).

It's a bit of fiddly process if it's complicated, but you can layer and place things however you want.

There is no dock, you can however pin items to show on every screen, which is basically the same thing, so that would also fit that criterion.

Also 4 swipe directions on icons for extra shortcuts beyond tap (last I used nova, it was just up and down? It's been many years).

Basically, can highly recommend Total Launcher, though in fairness, I have not tried some of the other launchers listed by others here.

The one time fee for pro is pretty affordable, iirc. The Dev is also pretty responsive via email

What features out of curiosity? I haven't used Nova since like Android 7

Largely stuff like widget and home screen padding, ability to place widgets on top of one another, set a custom widget for the search bar in the dock and place widgets in the dock

Some parts look kinda jank cause I haven't really worked on it since I replaced my phone so I never finished adjusting stuff to the different size screen, but this is my home screen right now. I just use a lot of features to make my jank ass setup work, so its hard to switch. Custom fonts would be so nice if I ever did make the leap though

Well shit, that's me.

Or it just keeps breaking and not reading my files.

Oh I am confusing this for Nova Video player.

Damn I was excited to switch to this Lawnchair everyone is so indifferent about.

What a great advertisement for almost any other launcher.

Lawnchair is my go to if anyone wants a pretty simple and customizable launcher that respects your privacy.

I've tested several popular ones and landed at Lawnchair as well. Plus point for being FOSS.

It sounded interesting so I gave it a look and realized that I've been using it for years now and it's just so unobtrusive that I forgot about it.

Switched about a year ago and it works perfectly!

+1. Just last week they added the ability to import Nova backups.

I downloaded the APK for the old version before they added the spyware and bloatware, but i turned off auto updates and Google Play keeps trying to get me to update Nova launcher to the newest version 🥱

Not going to happen and the best part is there was no forced update within the app so im going to keep using the old one till it breaks.

What's been everyone's experiences in customization on it? I keep mine simple of fun background and a calendar and only the app drawer. No second pages

Excellent. Lawnchair it is then.

I don't hate Lawnchair. I just hate Nova making the switch necessary.

Niagara is good as well.

Also spyware.

Thanks!

How so?

Requires network connection and is closed source.

Well yeah that’s the only way but then you lose the meteorology API which is a shame.

It sucks because Niagara is easily my favourite launcher, but I can’t afford to have a proprietary app with insane privileges across my device.

It's likely the only reason for the privilege is to collect coords to send to the weather API. At least it's optional, and there are alternative ways to see weather reports, just not on the home screen.

I tried accessing Google Photos via my phone to handle a couple of things I had active on that account from before. Little fuck refused to let me open the app unless it had unconditional access to all my media.

It didn’t need to request the coordinates, it should allow me to just pick a city in the world from a list and give me the local weather based on that.

It is a design choice to force you to always stay connected and, in my opinion, is very shady. It’s okay if you wish you assume innocence here, I personally cannot.

Yeah nah that makes sense. I've got a weather integration in Home Assistant and chose to add relatively accurate coordinates for the API calls. That at least was entirely under my control, whereas their implementation was "use it this way or not at all", demanding location access or no weather.

Sauce?

https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/bitpit.launcher/latest/#trackers

Well it's a good thing those two URIs can be easily blocked. Besides you can get the app from their Github page (sadly no F-droid repo as closed-source), and pay for Pro (if wanted) via Stripe instead of Google Play. I also had issues migrating Niagara off of Google once I'd connected the two, but an email correspondence with the lead dev Max Rumpf got the issue pleasantly and quickly resolved.

It's not FOSS though I think? Free and paid tier. Website doesn't say much about privacy etc. I actually have Lawnchair running silently and almost configured to mirror my Nova home screen but there doesn't seem to be folders in the app drawer which is a pain, unless I have totally missed it.

Edit: Indeed, I totally missed it, in the settings. FFS.

What have they done to my boy

You either die a hero or you live long enough to become the villain.

It's true even for apps.

Total enshittification. Practically conned then kicked out the original team so that they make their own intrusive changes.

Hell, any data they harvest will and can be sold to other parties. God knows how much fucking lunatic Peter could be offering them.

If anyone is stubborn enough and until someone makes a near 1:1 version -- and Lawnchair is functionally close to what Nova does -- do backup the existing settings, uninstall the app, roll back to the pre-2022 7.0.57b version, sideload install, then from GPlay disable auto-updating for the app. Yeah, and put restrictions on the app from trying to do telemetry.

This is what I ended up doing. Keeps it in the older untarnished state, things still work fine. Telemetry hadn't been added yet

I still got my Nova7 Pre-Branch .apk saved on my NAS. I really should try to find a replacement but so far it works as expected.

Lawnchair is a pretty good FOSS launcher.

Can confirm. I switched from Nova Launcher a year+ ago. I haven't noticed any downgrade. Lawnchair feels cleaner, better.

I guess proprietary software has no option but enshittification once an open source alternative exists. The proprietary product becomes strictly for chumps, so they make it a full on scam.

Do you know if Lawnchair can do a splitscreen with two apps? I got a new phone with lawnchair and I couldn't figure out how to do it the other day. I know it used to be a part of Android. I don't know if it's part of the OS, the launcher, or Google just decided to remove the feature.

I'm not sure if this is even launcher dependant thing? I'm on pixel 9 pro, using lawnchair myself.

In your open app-selector, you should have drop-down to start split screen mode.

spoiler

God bless. I didn't even see the drop down. My old Samsung and LG didn't do it that way. And of course searching on the internet for the solution yielded jack because everyone has enshitittfied their search engines. Thank you kind stranger.

Moved to action launcher after the sale. Enshittification was inevitable.

Other people are still rocking Action Launcher? I thought I was the only one left. Covers are my favourite feature.

You know some people beat this drum that more people should pay for good software and that it guarantees it's longevity and independence, and so I did buy the pro version of Nova years ago and now we are here, I think when it comes to software unless it's open source and you can have full control over it then it's not worth anything, as it's only matter of time before it either gets deleted or enshitified, that's why I started shifting to open source alternatives for most things

The problem with paying is that it doesn't solve the fundamental economics. Marginal cost of copying software is near zero, fractions of a cent. So there's just no way to justify economically charging anything more than a nominal fee for software. The entire concept of charging to allow people to download stuff is simply pure greed, and paying a little bit won't stop the greed in the slightest. And a lot of people simply enjoy creating software, so there's always going to be a foss alternative.

Anyone that gives a single shit about their data being sold to third parties should have dumped Nova a long time ago.

This is the first I've heard about any privacy issues. I dumped Nova recently because I found a good FOSS launcher.

Mind sharing which launcher you switched to?

Dragon Launcher. Apparently it isn't on Play; you have to use F-Droid.

You just solved one of my long-standing problems! I've been looking for a launcher that could replace Nova for me, but I hadn't been able to find anything that really did the job. Octopi for the win!

I am in the process of moving over my highly-customized setup now. And I made the larger of the two donations, in support of the app.

Thanks for suggesting it and thanks to the developer who built it!

well if you didn't jump ship in 2022 i guess this is your time

hasn't update this app since 2021 lol. Good thing the pre-enshitification version worked perfectly fine without updates.

Fuck all this. Stock android degoogled/Lineageos should be standard for every phone.

Next phone I get will be 100% degoogled. Hopefully a full Linux distro is out by then. I wish there was a Linux distro for phones that was just the regular OS but with adaptive standards like how websites change with desktop and mobile and Windows size changes.

Check out Swappa.com, find an unlocked Google Pixel 7a or 8a, and load GrapheneOS onto it.

Out of interest as a 7a user , what's the top 3 pros and cons ?

Top 3 Pros:

  1. You have a daily driver OS that is so open you can install any app on it that can be sideloaded.

  2. You have access to the Google Pixel camera, which, when paired with Open Camera or any open source camera app, can take photos in stunning detail without having to rely on Google's proprietary software.

  3. The form factor of the A-series of Pixels, depending on your hand size, may be just the right fit for your hands. I have big hands and even I find the Pro/XL models to be a bit big for my tastes.

Top 3 Cons:

  1. There are some banking, payment, etc. apps that won't even open without Google Play Services being installed. Fortunately, GrapheneOS has Sandboxed Google Play services that isolates Google Play services from the OS and allows only the necessary minimum utilities from Play Services for those apps to be useable.

  2. Google's Tensor chip is...not good. Like it's Exynos bad. Fortunately, I believe the Pixel 6 series had the first and worst version of the chip. Each phone after has slowly improved the reliability of the modem so calls can be made in/outbound. Thankfully, GrapheneOS recently partnered with Motorola to allow future Motorola phones to be installed with GrapheneOS, so ideally their phones should have much better modems.

  3. [insert third con I can't think of here]

Sorry just seen this and i have always like Motorola devices , so the fact it may ship out of the box is nice to hear

Yeah might end up doing that. I'm waiting for the graphene official phones for now while my current phone is still functioning.

Try Fairphone. Ethically fantastic company, and they offer their phones with either Android or Murena /e/OS

Thanks for the reminder! I had switched to Lawnchair, but I just realized I had forgotten to uninstall Nova. Fixed!

Same. Just uninstalled that spyware

Lawnchair runs fine on GrapheneOS.

And on pretty much every other android too.

Yeah it's time. Nova was great but now it's fully enshitified. I went with Niagara. There's a short learning period, less than a week for me to feel comfortable, but I love it. Very simple and clean.

Same, it's great

I'm surprised people are still using this. I haven't used Nova for almost a decade.

I've been quite happy with Niagara for the last few months.

+1 for Niagara, plus even though you don't have to, pro features can be purchased outside of Google Play.

+2 for offering a lifetime purchase option (though it is kinda pricey)

Nova has a life time buy too. Fat fucking lot of good that did.

Far as I'm concerned if it ain't a private company with no investors open source products and functions entirely offline. Even then I don't fucking trust em.

Companies and their promises are worth less than the horse shit up in my barn.

damn i remember the good old days with Nova where everything was so smooth. Evie launcher too. And even we have many problems with them, Microsoft launcher was good in the beginning.

There were many good options. Now it's just Niagara Launcher that doesn't suck.

Edit: I see Octopi getting mentioned a lot. Might have to check that one out.

lawn chair for the win

or any stock launchers will do. Nowadays the stocks are more than enough for me. On GOS, I tried Lawnchair but always go back to the default one.

Dragon Launcher is a really cool paradigm shift. Pie menus, pie menus everywhere.

What does any of this do? What problem or need is it addressing? I'm honestly so confused by 99% of technology these days, it seems to be nothing more than an electronic pacifier for an entire generation of ADHD addicts.

By adding launchers you can customize the Android "desktop" way more in depth and it enables you to add for example custom app icons

I don't think that's the point. The point is the AI features being added for no reason

I switched from Nova to Niagara a couple years ago and I'm very happy with it

Niagara is great, I don't miss pages with icons at all

>Downloads Niagara to minimalise my phone, reduce distractions
>Buys Pro, re-enables icons

Am I a heathen

Lawnchair for graphene

Kvaesitso is really nice as well

+1 for lawn chair

Oh yay creepware. Anyone know a good launcher with support for tablets?

Kvaesitso

I switched from Nova to Smart Launcher.

Missing a few things I liked but still super capable

Lawnchair?

Neo Launcher is a near 1-1 clone of Nova Launcher imo, and it's open source

Used Nova for close to ten years. Switched last year to Kvaesitso.

I recommend everyone still using Nova to look into options and switch. It's not as scary as it seems.

Really enjoying Kvaesitso!

It's not as scary as it seems.

What happened to people? I used to try out a new launcher every other week. Did it not long ago until I settled for Niagara. Might try out Octopi some day.

People are generally hesitant on installing apps. I know so many people, even (or especially) young ones, that buy a 1000€+ device and only ever use the pre-installed apps.

For me it wasn't just "an app". Your launcher defines your entire phone experience. I had used Nova for so long and tweaked it juuust the way I liked it. To me, that was my phone. It was daunting to try and switch.

So basically any advantage over the native launcher is void?

The hell happened? First it was ads, now this bs. It was such a good launcher too.

Got bought up Branch, and the original dev left when they refused to open source it as promised.

The end began 4 years ago. Now they're set up to grift anyone using the app.

What possible use could AI be in a launcher?

I don't think anybody is pretending it's a legitimate reason. We all know the reason. The developer knows the reason. It's exactly what you think it is

Somebody please give me a lightweight alternative.

Had the pro version for years. I dont want niagra or lawnchair. The pixel launcher sucks.

I have been enjoying octopi launcher. Has pretty much the same as nova for settings and shortcuts.

It's made some pretty significant additions lately that makes it a viable replacement for Nova.

Oh wow. Octopi has free placement of widgets and icons. I'm sold.

Go foss to avoid further enshittification.

My fav: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.fossify.home

Smart launcher will let you import your nova backup and transition seamlessly. That's my recommendation.

Try Octopi Launcher. The menus are different, but you can customize I'd say 85-90% identical to anything you could do in Nova. I duplicated my entire setup and it feels 90% the same.

KISS launcher. It's the lightest weight option I know of. It also is the only one with a half decent dock. For some fucking reason every modern launcher has decided docks suck.

I hate this suggestion but it is the only one I've been able to stomach as something that operates like Nova: Microsoft Launcher

Its actually quite decent and mostly seems to be a forgotten piece of software so it hasn't been enshitified.

i used it for a long time, then moved to nova

I did come across it and it looked good but I cant instlall it. Its bad enough google are on my phone.

I did install Niagra and it seems better than before.

Lawnchair

Oh great: one more AI to disable.

I switched from Nova to Total Launcher a while back and it's been great. It has all the customization features I liked from Nova, plus additional useful features like folder swipe actions that Nova never had

Not just folders, every icon has 4-way configurable swipe. I've gone a little swipe crazy now. Who needs folders when you can launch 5 different things by swiping a single icon...

Something I cannot find in any other FOSS launcher that is the one part of Nova I want to keep: gestures on home page folders. Home page icons that I can swipe up or down to do independent actions and can be an app or folder of apps. Nothing I've found seems to have the same features in this regard.

Octopi Launcher does this

Not who you're responding to, but part of me really wants Octopi to be available on F-Droid and open source

That might be what i switch to for now, but really want a FOSS option so I don't have to worry about doing this again

Meh, I'll just keep not updating my 2024 version that I already paid for years ago and works perfectly fine lol

Me too. Only bummer is that the weather widget in the search bar keeps crashing. Other than that, I have no issue staying on my current version.

Wasn't nova launcher basically shut down not even 2 years ago.

Last I knew they fired everyone but 1 dev, then that dev said "yea fuck this im out" and left as well.

And yet another piece of software I have to abandon because of this dipshit cult behaviour.

Thanks guys. You really just went ahead and put your dick in it.

whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy I hate corporations so much WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

anyways here's my new homescreen

I still need to make groups and change images...

Omg omg kityyyyy

If I didn't find Octopi launcher a couple months back, and jumped ship from my overly customized Nova setup, this would definitely have made me switch now.

I had it since at least 2018. At least from then were the 5 stars reviews I had left, now replaced with 1 star ones...

+1 for Octopi, it's the only one that really does almost everything Nova does

ew... it is my favourite launcher but I disabled updates once it got acquired 😭

Does anyone know of a launcher with similar customisability? All the active launchers I found focus on minimalism and no or monochrome icons, while Nova lets me arrange my colourful icons in whatever way I want, reskin them, etc 😐

Edit: Lawnchair's Nova backup import feature in their newest beta release pushed me to try it out, let's see 👀

Edit 2: ok it seems to only have lost my home-pinned website bookmarks, so this could be a workable solution 😊

I'd recommend Niagara Launcher but I think they also got acquired feelsbadman. We're going to be forced into Linix Phones at this rate.

Lawnchair worked out pretty well for me, might be worth a try for you too? I just had to ignore that their promotional screenshots are all boring monochrome, turns out the launcher itself doesn't force any colours :)

You could also try Yagni launcher on fdroid. 2mb, still in alpha, but very much worth installing.

If anyone wants to switch to a more customisable launcher, look up total launcher. You can build the launcher in your own style from a blank template. The only thing that comes close is klwp.

https://github.com/JackEblan/YagniLauncherthis should be fine for most of you

unironically I like this one most, well excluding the novalauncher I've been using for like 5 years 🙃

Ewwwww....

Where my Smart Launcher crew at? Usually you guys show up when it's time to shit on Nova.

Anyway, if you like the features an ease-of-use of Nova, and you are looking for an alternative, Smart Launcher all day. A played with so many of the other launchers mentioned in this thread before I found SL, and it really feels like the best to me. But that's just like, my opinion, man.

Ugh. I've been holding out until now.

I've tried a ton of others but the only one I even half like is Lawnchair. The others are too restricted, too annoying or too creepy.

Does anyone know how to replicate the custom groups/tabs of apps inside the app drawer?

The app drawer and ability to choose my own search engine are what keeps me on it. I don't want "smart" anything, just let me control it.

Octopi Launcher. Until I found this I was ignoring all the red flags with Nova.

Found this, ran away from Nova.

Yea Octopi is the closest to 1:1 my old setup.

Octopi launcher is looking good so far! Thank you for the suggestion.

Nova was so customizable. I used those same group, tab features a lot over the years. Categories like: Network, Games, PIM, Storage, Images, Comms, etc, can take a lot of clutter out of your main drawer, not to mention Nova let you customize the visuals to a extensive point.

I remember using one called Apex around the days of early Nova and the two of them would swap who was in the lead and who was the better launcher. I haven't found an open source launcher that gives me what I want.

As others have said, check out Octopi. I was also sticking to Nova, couldn't find anything even close until Octopi.

Ah man, I forgot about apex

Yeah, it was top notch, right up there with Nova for a year or two. Oh how the great have fallen!

I like olauncher. Took a while to get used too.

I mean, isn't Neo mostly Nova but with things fixed like those "ghost icons" Nova has left broken since the Lollipop update?

A third party launcher for Android(homescreen). It was very beloved for being clean and lightweight while also having a bunch of customization.

It was bought up by an adware company not long ago.

What I don't get is: why exactly is such software so popular ? Does one really need it instead of just swiping twice or thrice to find the app one is looking for?

Some of us also enjoy customizing and designing our own home screen. I have mine set up to just show my wallpaper and a grid of 9 icons. You can also change icons, icon shape, etc. I have simple icons for my folders rather than an ugly icon with 4 little icons inside it that seems to be the default for "folder" on all phones.

I enjoy the aesthetics of it. I think it's ironic that iPhones are so freaking ugly and messy when their whole brand was built on clean design.

It's putting whatever you want and what you don't want on the home screen, including for example launching into search.

My phone stock launcher search dialog that once would have been to type the app name became a 'multi-search' that would do internet search and AI search and app search was sluggish and third set of results. So I go for a launcher that keeps the app search field just a quick name based search of applications.

It does also do things like let me opt into fitting more icons on the screen at a time, since the default launcher has some ludicrous small number of icons on screen at a time.

Also, the scrolling lets me scroll letters to rapidly get to apps starting with 'm' for example without typing, though I never use that.

It also presents a different 'folder' design where a tap on it launches a default app from the group, and a quick slide opens it up to select a less popular, alternate app quickly.

Also, two finger swipe from top takes me straight to typing app name to launch.

Someone else I knew swapped launchers just to have a different wallpaper behavior that their stock launcher wouldn't do.

Currently using Octopi.

i think my Samsung had this shitty search feature or something that wanted to put a bunch of shit on one of my pages. Can't quite remember. But I know Google recently did the same thing with the Pixel. There's this fucking search bar that takes up the whole bottom of the screen on every single page. And they won't let you remove it. That alone was enough for me to switch.

That damn search bar was the only reason I ever started looking at launchers. I used LG and Samsung phones for years and wanted a more streamlined interface closer to stock android, so I got a pixel.

And the very first time I turned it on, I was incredibly disappointed to see this giant Google logo nailed to the bottom of the screen, existing only to provide functionality that I don't want.

So into the launcher rabbit hole I dove.

This is like saying "Why exactly is chocolate so popular? Nobody needs to eat chocolate!"

And, of course, you'd be correct while totally missing the point of chocolate.

The stock default launchers tend to suck for one reason for another. Icons taking up a lot more screen space than needed is a major one for me.

Being able to adjust grid size is a great advantage to custom launchers.

missed a chance with that headline " sucks off all your data"

I have been a happy camper switching from OLauncherCF to Fokus Launcher, author was very receptive to feedback and updated quickly, recommend 10/10

EDIT: fix typo

Which one exactly? There seem to be at least five different ones...

https://github.com/luantak/FokusLauncher

Thank you!

What could I use to keep macros like double-tapping my screen to open a specific app?

Why....

I use Minimalist Phone Launcher with network access disabled. I know there are libre alternatives out there, but I didn't like them as much, and I desperately needed a digital detox.

Just disable it's network permission.

Or better yet, just uninstall it

how do you do that on samsungs?

I guess it's fair for everyone now that there are no more copyright laws being enforced and it has become a free for all. As long as it's not one-sided then I'm all for it. /s

"Could" always does a lot of heavy lifting in headlines.

Aliens COULD invade at any time!

Your dad COULD be a robot!

This article COULD get a lot more interactions with this one simple trick!

Never heard of it?

It was by far the best launcher on Android until it was bought by an ad company.

And it was so by a huge margin. It had features and customizability unmatched to this day afaik

Yes, and requests for those features get ignored in the competitors' forums.

Sub-tile icon/widget placement, I'm looking at you!

I give up. I'm moving to iphone. I've been using Android for 16 years and I'm finally tired Boss. There is just too much bad android news stories to count. See you later space cowboys.

Graphene

Looking forward to seeing what comes next for them. Nice platform.

Not a solution. Apple is just as evil and their design and interface is horrible.

I mean iphone definitely has ai tracking everything you do, even when you keep the phone in your pocket, so i don't think that would help you in anyway

You are right. The lack of true completely functional alternatives is part of the sad state of mobile OS decay we are suffering. I had already abandoned Nova launcher for Lawnchair last year. This entire android ecosystem is just less functional everyday and it's Google's design. I don't have a good solution and it's quite frankly embarrassing to be defending this OS as a solution anymore. The team over at GrapheneOS seems to be the one of the only teams who haven't lost the plot. The team over at FUTO has a good thing going (I use the FUTO keyboard). I will continue to support them and their endeavors, I just can't buy yet another pixel.

FUTO is kinda shady

Fucking Curtis Yarvin everytime... Jfkm

I mean yeah pixel is like the most expensive enshittified android you can buy

I give up. I’m moving to iphone

Apple still a lot worse and has a far more closed environment, sadly android is headed in that direction too

And the solution is iOS...?

The solution is moving to a cabin in the woods with a Nokia 8210. I'm not read for that (yet).

yawnnnnnn don't care