Branch Metrics sucks. They fired almost of all people working for Nova.
What is the best replacement? I’ll hold on to Nova as long as possible, but if for some reason they screw it in some way…
I’ve been using Microsoft launcher for about a year now. It’s surprisingly very customizable.
I use Firefox with duck duck go. Even the launcher’s default search bar lets you choose the engine.
Is Branch better than Microsoft?
I loved Nova, but a couple of years ago, I found AIO, and it just blew nova out of the water for me. I look around to see if anything better comes along, but so far, I’ve not seen anything that gets close to AIO for me. It is so customizable, everything on one vertical scrollable screen, email, notifications, calendar, apps, weather. I absolutely love it!
I’ve also been using it for a while but I do have complaints. They introduced a few minor bugs when it went from omega to neo and despite them being reported over a year ago they’ve not made any fixes since. I use it because it’s alright and not spying on me, but I’m always on the lookout for an improvement.
I’m pretty happy with total launcher in combination with app search since I didn’t like totals app drawer.
Edit: I just found OpenLauncher and I’m going to test that out.
I use total launcher also.
It’s cumbersome. It’s pain in the ass. But it works great with my pixel fold. I love it.
LawnChair is the best option I’ve tried that has a similar design to Nova.
I’ve tried at least a couple dozen launchers since Nova got bought. Most of them are either half-baked or have a very different design (e.g. based on radial menus or text-only lists). If you’re into minimalism, there are a lot of good options. If you want a full-featured icon grid that behaves more or less like Nova, LawnChair is it.
I’m running LawnChair 14 Beta now. You can get it off the GitHub. Last I checked, the version on Google Play was very old.
Does the new beta have the same features as the old one yet? Last time I tried it, I couldn’t get it to work quite the same way.
Do you remember which features specifically were missing? It might be something I haven’t used. For me it was a pretty straightforward upgrade from version 12.
The only problem I ran into was that adding widgets was a little funky when changing the grid size. I think I had to add the widgets before changing the grid size (I use a 5x10 grid) or they didn’t align correctly. I encountered similar problems with many of the launchers I tried.
Kvaesitso has risen to the top as my favorite launcher after trying a ton of launchers.
I don’t understand why someone would want a “search-focused” launcher. You mean I have to bring up the on-screen keyboard and type out the name of an app instead of just scrolling & tapping an icon with 1-2 simple motions? Yuck. What am I missing?
You mean I have to bring up the on-screen keyboard and type out the name of an app instead of just scrolling & tapping an icon with 1-2 simple motions?
It just means you have the option to do both. Kvaesitsio has the app drawer one would expect, and a persistent search bar.
