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Android app drawers come in all shapes and sizes, but most stick to the same basic formula. There's a homescreen with apps, folders, and widgets. Everything else is tucked away inside the app drawer.
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.
EverythingMe Launcher Exits Beta, Improves Smart Folders And Adds Cards [Hands-On]
EverythingMe Launcher Exits Beta, Improves Smart Folders And Adds Cards [Hands-On]
You remember Everything.me, right? About a year ago it popped up in the Play Store as a homescreen replacement built around search. It aimed to deliver a smarter, context-based experience by generating suggestions using automatically generated themes and suggestions for apps and websites. The project even drew the attention of Mozilla and ultimately became the interface of Firefox OS. Today, Everything.me leaves beta and changes its name ever so slightly to EverythingMe.
Now that the developers of the more popular apps in the Play Store have come to grips with the changes in Android 4.4, it's high time to see them take advantage of the new options. Such is the case with popular alternative homescreen Apex Launcher, which exits its KitKat-enhanced beta and lands on the Play Store today. The new version adds a host of visual tweaks to bring the launcher up to date with 4.4.
Themer wowed us with its introduction a few months back, and today's update to the powerful homescreen replacement and customization app is the largest yet. The biggest change is a redesigned app drawer, which allows for both the standard scrolling view and a new Categories screen. Categories are basically folders, but they're displayed like Google Now cards, and automatically populated with apps. You can manually tweak them if you want.
KitKat introduces a lot of much-needed features into Android, like better support for low-memory devices, a new storage framework, SMS integration with BLAH BLAH BLAH. We all know what the people want: transparent user interface elements! Following Nova Launcher's update to better visually match the KitKat launcher on the Nexus 5, popular alternative Apex Launcher now has a beta version that does much the same thing.
The founders of Do@ (often spelled DoAT) believe your smartphone is boring and stale, and they want to make it "dynamic" with Everything.me Launcher. I always love new and innovative launchers, or, just about anything that could dramatically change how I interact with my smartphone. When I saw the video, which promises your smartphone will adapt to whatever you are interested in, I was more than a little intrigued. The idea is for people to declare what they want to see at the moment, and then immerse them with imagery and apps.
You may remember the Chameleon tablet homescreen project making news last month as the developers started seeking financial backing with the aid of Kickstarter. Teknision Inc. was looking to scoop up $50,000 in small donations to make Chameleon a reality, but after crossing the threshold shortly ago, the funding was cancelled.
Anyone who has ever ventured into the world of alternative launchers has surely heard of LauncherPro, the favorite homescreen replacement of many. The developer of LP has released an update today that brings the version number up to 0.8.6 and a number of other features with it. Take a peep at the changelog:
We all love eye candy, but when combined with practical functionality, it truly becomes a thing of beauty. That’s exactly what mobile developers SPB Software have accomplished with their new shell replacement app, SPB Shell 3D.
There's certainly no shortage of homescreen replacements for Android, but who's to say that we can't have one more? And you've got to admit, this concept app - Fipplr - looks really nice, and doesn't appear to fall short in terms of functionality, either.