Apex vs nova launcher on the s3 because touchwiz sucks....

[babracmmm]

All I've known is Sense (Droid Incredible). Which launcher is similar if TouchWiz isn't liked?

 

[Premium1]

Have you used the new touchwiz that is only on the sgs3 and not on any other samsung devices? Touchwiz isn't that bad. It actually adds some nice functionality to ICS.

 

[eric0668]

2 things:

I thought I read somewhere that Nova had a significantly less drain on battery
Can more than a person validate that?

And, crazy enough, I like them both but one feature I like is the google voice icon on Nova
Google voice has gotten increasingly better and I use it, prolly will more than S voice on GS3

Is there a way to get that (Not Vlingo) almost identical app, icon that works like Google
Text ? Search ? (web) Find ? (nearby)

Thanks and if so, Id probably go with Apex. I like the notifications that you have to get an app for on Nova, even tho it is not that hard

 

[Thalinor]

I am in the exact same boat, trying to decide which to buy. I have already bought LP+ and ADW (Both are very outdated and not getting updated) so I am trying to decide which of these two to buy.

Here is the thing, Samsung wants to shove S-Voice down your throat and has disabled access to Voice Search directly. I am rooted on my Verizon GS3, and still can't find a way to directly add a shortcut to Voice Search. Even when you go to the market and look at Voice Search, you do not have the option to open the app, its not in the app tray, and you can not create a shortcut to it to put on your desktop.

Nova Launcher has a built in Voice Search shortcut in Nova actions, making it easy to add to the desktop and restoring Voice Search functionality to the SG3 w/o having to use SVoice as a front end. I am aware you can switch SVoice to use Voice Search (Google) instead of Samsung's Voice Search engine (Vlingo) but you still have to use Svoices front end which is bloated and slow.

I emailed the Apex team (screen shots, etc) and got a blown off response basically one sentence telling me to add the suggestion to their feature request website where people vote on if they want the option or not. Fk that, screw you. Its not a "feature" to have a shortcut to Voice Search built into your home replacement, its basic functionality. What, you cant take the time to send something other then a canned email reply? Thats ok, I will use something else.

When you hit the phones menu button in Apex it has a giant list of crap that comes up (Add, Wallpaper, Theme Settings, Manage Apps, Manage Screens, Apex Settings, System Settings, Lock Desktop, Help). Seriously? Do you need to shortcut all of that from the menu button? Am I going to be switching my desktop theme so much that that option should have an shortcut come up every time I hit menu; can't it just go under Apex Settings?

Nova has "Wallpaper" "Manage Apps" Nova Settings" and "System Settings". Nice and simple, just like it should be when you hit the menu button on your phone from the homepage. Being that you can drag an app icon and hover over the trash to uninstall, I would argue "Lock Desktop" would be far more valuable menu button shortcut then "Manage Apps", but at least its not a huge list of crap I don't need shortcutted from the menu button like in Apex. There is a Lock Desktop option but its buried in Nova settings instead.

Apex however has a cleaner settings menu, with what looks to be more setting options then Nova. I am only comparing free to free as I have yet to decide which paid version I want to buy, but at this point after getting blown off by Apex support, seeing the bloated Apex menu button, and Apex not having Voice Search support built in, I am probably going with Nova.

My personal opinion is Apex might be a little bit ahead of Nova but it seems like its starting to get bloated too which is why I no longer use "Go" products (Launcher, SMS, etc).

 

[timberga]

Nova uses less battery life than apex from what I've seen.

 

[stainiu]

Nova all the way for me, I personally found TW to be to clunky for my liking.
Nova runs very fast and smooth, I like the recent apps icon that I have put in my dock. Apex has that as well.

 

[mrtinydave]

i personally love touchwiz over any of the other launchers i have tried since getting the s3. i had a sample of older touchwiz before the s3 and it sucked but on the s3 touchwiz is amazing

 

[allanmclovin]

Samsung has not disabled access to voice search. Here are three ways to access Voice Search that you didn't mention:

1) Hold down the menu button from hone screen to activate voice search.
2) Voice Search widget
3) Google Search app placed on your home screen.

 

[StayFly]

I have apex pro and this is what i notice on the s3. Nova will allow you to use samsung widgets like some of their clocks but not the weather clock. With Apex you have to be rooted in order to use those widgets.

 

[ansextra]

Nova uses less battery life than apex from what I've seen.

Have you verified this or is it just subjective?

 

[stephanb]

Decided on nova...... no regrets now moving on to tackle other issues with the phone constant work in progress thank you all for weighing in.....

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Android Central Forums

 

[OWybPPgO]

I'm using Nova and I like it, but is there any way to do any of the following:
- make the labels on the icons larger
- make the icons larger / use less space between icons
- change the color of the icon text
- have a text box background so the icon text isn't right on the background

I find it very hard to see some of the text with my middle aged eyes The last item, especially, makes it difficult if I use a background with any white in it anywhere. What do you do about that?

Or does Apex do any of the above?

 

[andross77]

I love this thread as I have been deciding the same thing, which launcher to use. Touchwiz isn't that bad at all on the SGS3 but I hate that it won't rotate the homescreen to landscape and I also really like the ability to customize my dock.

What I did notice last night as I was switching between Nova and Apex was that in both launchers I was having an issues with text messages and the app Chaos & Order. Basically if I was doing anything on the phone (mostly going through the settings customizing the launchers) and got a text, it would freeze my phone for around 10 seconds, then I would get a popup saying that Chaos & Order had to force close and at the same time the text message would come through. Then everything worked ok until I would get another one.

This happened to me no less than 10 times last night because I just so happened to get into a long texting conversation with someone which I don't usually do. So now I'm wondering if Chaos & Order doesn't work well with the launchers or if the launchers are a bit buggy? It's sad because I love playing that game and I had ZERO freezes or force closes in my first 4 days with the phone while I was using Touchwiz.

I've also noticed Apex and Nova are not near as smooth as Touchwiz. Sure they can be fast and I turned the animations completely off so everything would be as instant as possible but Touchwiz is still noticeably faster. This is kind of a "duh!" comment since we are talking about homescreen overlays but it's disappointing since one of the coolest things with this phone for me was it's the first android I've owned that everything was instant and perfectly smooth. Even smoother than the iPhone 4s I came from.

So I have Nova set up exactly how I want it with Metrostation Icons, black background (for power saving) and Pure Calendar widget but we'll see how I deal with the smoothness and if it actually does eat up too much battery. I would love to stick with Touchwiz but I really, really want to be able to go into landscape on the homescreen and alter the dock to make it look nicer.

inb4, "first world problems...." hehe

 

[anon(3092520)]

I decided to give a launcher a try and went with Apex. Being able to stack my apps is awesome. Instead of having 5 pages of apps to scroll through, I have them all on one page, in 8 different groups. I'll never go back to using the stock UI.

 

[d1ez3]

Apex seems to crash on me several times a day, even did a complete wipe and it happens. I have my LCD density at 300 and use 5x5 grid

 

[ansextra]

Do either Apex or Nova provide unread counts for Exchange? For some reason, both Sense and Touchwiz do, but I haven't found another launcher or widget that does.

Also, I played with Nova a bit. Is there any way to get back the big calendar widget that Touchwiz has (see attachment)? It's strange that I can get one of the calendar widgets but not the others (I thought these are just standard ICS widgets and not Touchwiz). But in Nova I only get the one that displays today's appointments.

yeah I could use Pure Grid, but I really like the look of the one that I get in Touchwiz.

I also like the Touchwiz widget but it won't bring my tasks in from Astrid like Android Agenda widget does. So I use Android Agenda widget.

 

[socialillz]

Question.
Once I have nova as my default launcher, if I want to go back to TW, how would I do that?

 

[Sentrix]

Question.
Once I have nova as my default launcher, if I want to go back to TW, how would I do that?

Settings -> Application Manager -> Nova -> Clear Defaults

Then press the home button and select TouchWiz when prompted which launcher to use.

 

[RifterAD]

I was also dissapointed to see that this Samsung widget didn't show up in my launcher (Apex)...

 

[bsdmom44]

I tired both on my GS3, but Apex had issues with the Facebook ap for me. If you're in the ap and use the back button, the screen gets wonky. Once I removed Apex, everything was fine.