Table of Contents
Attribution
This tip is a syndicated copy of part of KemoNine’s blog post about tuning Android.
What?
This page outlines a number of different launchers that can make working with an Android device less frustrating. It’s a simple list and it’s assumed you can sort which launcher you prefer based trying the options that look most compelling (or all of them).
Good Android Launchers, A List
- olauncher / pro launcher by digital minimalism
- for focused devices (boox book devices / fiio music devices / etc)
- simple, straightforward and gets out of your way
- has some basic amenities but is very clearly ‘a textual list of apps’ above all else
- niagara launcher
- great text launcher
- if you’re into text lists, this is a good one to review
- can do widgets and more on ‘main page’
- very good ’list style’
- youll want pro to get at all the fancier tunables
- if you’re into olauncher or text launchers, this is worth looking at closer
- smart launcher
- highly tunable
- mash up of Nova and microsoft launchers
- probably a better starting point than Nova these days
- no way to have separate layouts for phone and tablet modes
- square home
- think windows phone launcher and windows 8 start menu tile/dash board setups
- literally: this is a proper hot take on the windows 8 and windows phone launcher stuff
- aio launcher
- minimal launcher with lots of ‘bells and whistles’
- feels like a big text dashboard
- nova launcher
- great, been around forever custom launcher on the whole
- no way to have separate layouts for phone and tablet modes – this is a deal breaker
- seeing implications the devs have no interest in foldable phone support / dual screen support
- may be on life support post-purchase from the original dev/team
- smart launcher is probably the better choice as of the writing of this blog post