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Meet my Android screen of shame, where all my non-themed app icons live
There's no place for ugly apps on a well-curated homescreen
Material You has been around for a few years now, and with Android 14 right around the corner, it's easy to take this fantastic feature for granted. However, despite the improvements made in Android 13, I am still resigned to sending apps to my screen of shame two years after the feature debuted. It's a problem I expect to persist on everything from Pixel phones to budget Android tablets.
Android 13 DP1 opens up dynamic icon theming to third-party apps
Just be ready for a big mix of themed and un-themed icons
Google has confirmed that Material You is set to grow beyond the bounds of the Pixel family, but that doesn’t mean it’s done evolving and growing in new ways. An experiment in Android 12 Beta 3 expands the reach of the dynamic theming system to home screen icons, but only for Google's own apps. Now with Android 13, third-party apps are free to create their own theming-friendly icons so you can have the two-tone icon packs you’ve always wanted without installing a custom launcher.
Google is working on a simpler homescreen for Duo
A combined button will let you start an new call, call home, or create a new group
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Have you found that the homescreen interface is confusing when you've used Duo? Actually, maybe I should back that up: have you used Duo? Google would really appreciate it if you at least tried it out. To that effect, it's listening to some users about ways to make the homescreen easier to use.
Android 11's launcher lets you swipe up on secondary homescreens to go back to the main one
Beta 2 brings back a way to directly access Recents from the launcher, too
When Google first introduced its take on gesture navigation with Android 10, one navigation option die-hard Android fans are used to disappeared — there was no longer a way to quickly jump back from a secondary homescreen to the first page, which you could do by tapping the home button. Android 11 is looking to fix that.
Samsung's Good Lock is a massively popular app that lets you customize your Galaxy device, and was recently updated to support Android 10 and One UI 2.0. Samsung has now released Home Up, a module for Good Lock that allows the user to extensively fine-tune their homescreen folders, including their appearances and backgrounds.
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- While the previous version didn't support gestures, the latest alpha build (v4.10.6.1038-06251834) lets users swipe up anywhere on the home screen to bring up the app drawer, as shown in the video below. Even though this confirms the company's commitment to offering an app drawer, it's still an early version, as the menu options to activate the feature aren't translated yet.
One of the many reasons I don't like iOS is its lack of an app drawer. Indeed, I want things to be very organized, and dumping all icons on my homescreen just doesn't work for me. Xiaomi, however, preferred to mimic Apple and decided to go against Android standards by removing the app drawer in its MIUI launcher, which essentially meant all icons had to be on the home screen. However, the company appears to be opening up by letting users enable the drawer in MIUI.
Google began rolling out the traditional friday night update to the beta channel. Like so many other updates, this one brings with it minor tweaks to the interface. Of more interest are the topics for a teardown, which includes changes to Voice Match, migration of more settings for the home screen, and a bit more about KITT.
If you're anything like me, you probably change your wallpaper pretty often. I'm both easily bored and fickle, so I'm always searching for the next cool photo or artwork to make my homescreen pop. The guys behind Alvar Carto have provided me with my next great wallpaper, and I can't recommend it enough.
Nova Launcher remains the go-to alternative launcher for power users, customization fanatics, and plain old everyday Android fans. The developer continues to iterate the app with a ton of new features and options, and the full version bump to 5.0 is all about emulating the look of Google's official (and so far unannounced) Pixel launcher. It's available in beta form now from the Play Store program, but the developer also makes the updated APK available as a direct download.
There was some stiff competition for alternative launchers in the early days of Android, but now thanks to tireless dedication and improvement from the developer, the excellent Nova Launcher stands at the top of the pile. Nova has been one of our favorite apps since it debuted way back in the Ice Cream Sandwich days, and while it's quite serviceable as a free app, the $4.99 upgrade to the Prime version is worth every penny. Luckily, you won't actually have to pay every penny today: it's on sale for 99 cents.
Coming across a genuinely new launcher interface and paradigm on Android is rare. Most third-party clients try to emulate the default Android launcher and add some customizations and improvements here and there. Not to undermine the power of something like Nova Launcher, but there's only so many times you can swipe left and right between homescreens or tap to open and close an app drawer before you wonder what that new launcher you installed does differently. If you seek the novelty of a new welcoming interface each time you unlock your phone, choices are somewhat more limited especially if you want a reliable and simple app, not one that has been built for the sake of difference more than usability.
The latest version of Opera has arrived, and it comes containing all the features we detailed when we took a look at the beta build last month. But there was one feature we didn't say much about at the time, and this is the one Opera has chosen to emphasize in its announcement post.
We know everybody is looking forward to the big Hangouts 4.0 update; and despite a pretty active day for updates, there's no sign that the big green chat app is going to get a big new version today. While we're waiting, a smallish update to the Google Play Newsstand app reminds us that there's plenty of stuff to read in the news. The changes in this release are mostly centered around improving performance and accessibility, and fixing bugs. However, there is one potentially handy new feature making an appearance: home screen shortcuts.
Android users in general like widgets. Android "advocates" (which I suppose includes all of us here at Android Police) remember when it was one of the biggest differentiators between Google's mobile operating system and iOS, back when people were trying to convince us that we didn't really need copy and paste support. So when Nokia's Z Launcher homescreen replacement app launched without widgets, a considerable number of users couldn't switch over because of this lack.
Nova Launcher is easily the top pick for conventional Android home screen replacements, and a "daily driver" for a good chunk of Android Police's staff. The latest update added a Material Design user interface, but there are other goodies hiding just below the surface. For example, version 4.0 includes a simple app search function hidden in the app drawer. It's especially handy if you've got hundreds of installed apps (like Artem) or just don't like organizing your apps into folders (like everyone else).
When it comes to alternative launchers based on the standard Android homescreen design, I think it's safe to say at this point that Nova Launcher is the best available. But developer TeslaCoil isn't resting on its laurels: the app is constantly being updated, tweaked, and improved. Today the biggest update to Nova Launcher in years is going out on its Google Play Store beta channel... and yes, it has Material Design.
Apex might be the last of the major launcher replacements to get a redesign for Android 5.0's visual style, but it certainly doesn't want to be the least. Apex's 3.0 update adds new Lollipop animations and a completely revamped visual style, making it more or less homogenous with Google's own launcher, but with the range of settings and tweaking options that customization fans crave. You can download the standard Apex Launcher for free, with the $4 upgrade app available for more options.
Nova is a homescreen launcher replacement that doesn't look like one, an option that feels about as close to stock as anything non-stock can—except immediately following the release of a new version of Android. During that time, Nova looks slightly dated, harking back to a distant past known to us as several months ago (or, for the majority of devices out there, the present). But without fail, an update comes that brings Nova users the look and feel of Google's latest homescreen.
Here's the thing about customization on Android, or any other interface for that matter: it's time-consuming. Whenever I try out a new launcher, I end up testing every option and toggle just to see if I like it, which inevitably means bouncing back and forth between the homescreen and the Settings menu for the launcher to see the results. It takes forever, which is why I've generally given up on fun things like themes and icon packs.