New Marshmallow App Drawer is TERRIBLE

[Aquila]

Nexus announcement today - might not be long until MM is on a lot more devices than this one.

sent via Nexus Assassin Edition. Gonfaloniere.

 

[gone down south]

It doesn't offer as tight integration with Google Now. That's the main attraction of the GNL.

It's just a different swipe gesture - up from the Home button instead of left to right. Otherwise exactly same Google Now functionality.

 

[zorak950]

I'm pretty sure the lack of options in the GNL is by design; there are tons of launcher replacements available with a billion customizations, Google is just providing a clean, straightforward default for the masses and assuming that the finicky user will download one of the alternatives.

 

[iusemyfingers]

From what I heard in the press conference the new app drawer just reminds me of Yahoo Aviate.
I just care about hiding apps I don't want to see in my app drawer with minimal customization hopefully Xposed/GEL will work on the Nexus 6P.

 

[Cakefish]

It's just a different swipe gesture - up from the Home button instead of left to right. Otherwise exactly same Google Now functionality.

No, you have to press the home button to return to homescreen. With GNL it's just a quick swipe away. It acts as an additional homescreen. That's why it's so good.

 

[Zachary Boddy]

No, you have to press the home button to return to homescreen. With GNL it's just a quick swipe away. It acts as an additional homescreen. That's why it's so good.

Eh "good" is an opinion. I wouldn't like having a whole home screen taken up by Google Now.

 

[gone down south]

No, you have to press the home button to return to homescreen. With GNL it's just a quick swipe away. It acts as an additional homescreen. That's why it's so good.

Again, just a matter of learning one specific tap instead of another, there's no difference in functionality.

 

[LeoRex]

No, you have to press the home button to return to homescreen. With GNL it's just a quick swipe away. It acts as an additional homescreen. That's why it's so good.

Yeah... I've used a bunch of other launchers, which either rely on the standard 'swipe up' gesture or they recreate a kind of Now like page using widgets. Either way, they aren't quite as integrated as using the Google Launcher and I found accessing it clunky and a bit slow. I use a lot of Now's functions and go in there quite a bit to check stuff out. If you didn't use it much, yeah... go with a custom launcher if you want, you won't miss much.

Keep in mind that the Launcher IS Google Now... its all the Google app. The launcher you download from the Play Store is just an extension to allow the Google app (which Now is a sub feature of) to act as a launcher.

This can make a difference. When you are using something like Nova, it treats Now's UI like an app... like any other app. If you want to get into Google Now, you have to swipe up from the home button (which is going away in 6.0 anyhow, getting replaced by Google On Tap), which then loads the Google App. If you use the Google Launcher, there's nothing to load since it's running as a high priority, protected application (being the launcher).

From the home screen, you are in there instantly with a quick flip. Now is another screen on your home screen, always running and always there.

 

[Leslie Ng]

How do you disable the 4 suggested apps in the app drawer? I can't seem to find a setting.
Thanks

 

[RichDom2185]

How do you disable the 4 suggested apps in the app drawer? I can't seem to find a setting.
Thanks

Go to the settings screen, there somewhere in the bottom is the option "app suggestions", under the home screen category... Switch it to off (note you have to update the app first.)

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[greatcal]

would you like to inform me how to turn off showing the most frequently used 4 apps on top.

it seems nova have that setting, but google now laucher not easy to find. thanks!

You can also turn off the suggested apps at the top from your Google settings.

 

[Aquila]

would you like to inform me how to turn off showing the most frequently used 4 apps on top.

it seems nova have that setting, but google now laucher not easy to find. thanks!

Google settings.

 

[larrytxeast]

I upgraded my Moto G 2015 to Marshmallow today. I found that notifications was slow to pull down (turned that off in developer options, ask if you you're curious) the other thing is that Apex launcher's app drawer now doesn't work correctly. It does in Holo Launcher HD and Nova, but Holo crashes if I try to add shortcuts, and Nova has dramatically overhauled their interface vs what it was, say, a year ago--so much so I don't like Nova anymore, hence I was using Apex.

Apex still works fine except, again, the app drawer now doesn't work properly. I've cleaned it off and reinstalled the latest version, it still does this.

 

[Inders99]

I upgraded my Moto G 2015 to Marshmallow today. I found that notifications was slow to pull down (turned that off in developer options, ask if you you're curious) the other thing is that Apex launcher's app drawer now doesn't work correctly. It does in Holo Launcher HD and Nova, but Holo crashes if I try to add shortcuts, and Nova has dramatically overhauled their interface vs what it was, say, a year ago--so much so I don't like Nova anymore, hence I was using Apex.

Apex still works fine except, again, the app drawer now doesn't work properly. I've cleaned it off and reinstalled the latest version, it still does this.

Reading these types of posts just confirms for me to not upgrade. I like my phone just as it is and Nova works beautifully on it.

 

[larrytxeast]

Reading these types of posts just confirms for me to not upgrade. I like my phone just as it is and Nova works beautifully on it.

Well to be fair, I decided to try Nova, and was able to learn my way around its newer interface and Nova works fine on my Marshmallow-updated Moto G 2015, there is no issue with the app drawer. I even went for Nova Prime. Apex & Nova do tend to be a lot alike, after all, other than Apex tends to stick with the traditional way of setting it up, mainly in that when you long-press on the desktop for adding icons you're greeted with the "dialog menu" in text-based list format rather than the graphical interface Nova greets you with. However, I gave Nova a try today and was able to figure it out. Apex also includes more gestures in the free version (double-tap gestures etc), but upon upgrading to Nova Prime it also had those. Mainly, I have an app that simply turns off your screen and puts the phone in lock status, and by having double-tap activate this app, you can thus have "double tap to lock" much like LG's "Knock On" for waking up the phone, in reverse. (I also set it to where swiping downward in any empty space opens up notifications.)

Having done this, everything is fine now, and in fact, after the very simple developer options tweak, notifications FLY, there's no lag whatsoever in opening up the notifications area. No other apps other than Apex seem to have been broken by Marshmallow, and I'm pleased with my phone now. One change I noticed and like--the do not disturb mode is also in the notifications area, and when setting it for a timed duration you have more options (in Lollipop it would jump from 4 to 8 hours, you now can set it for 5,6,7 hours etc). This may have made my "timed profile" apps no longer necessary.

 

[Ashtroid666]

If there is letters, will that make it much easier to navigate?

 

[Kane H]

It was this latest change that led to me going back to Nova. Hated the vertical app draw.

Posted via the Android Central App

Can someone tell me if you can remove the 4 most used apps from the top of the app browser

 

[Aquila]

Can someone tell me if you can remove the 4 most used apps from the top of the app browser

Yes, you can. It is in the settings of Google Now.