Benefits of Nova Launcher on S3?

[antman451]

Playing around with Nova Launcher; I've been stock since I got the phone. The wallpaper scrolling is cool, and I was able to move my 4 apps on my main home screen down to the scrolling dock, making everything cleaner...but I feel like I'm missing trying to figure out how it's way better. Enlighten me on the awesome stuff I can do.

Also, any performance or battery issues using it? Get the pro version?

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[GSDer]

The main thing I prefer about Nova Launcher is the scrolling dock. An added benefit is the better utilization of space - you can have 5 rows of apps on each Home screen. Combine those two and you can get away with fewer Home screens overall.

There are two annoyances though:
1. You can't save your layout/settings to the SDCard, only the internal memory. So if you're a frequent flasher you have to remember to manually copy the saved file to your SDCard. Rather annoying, and an easy fix, but the developer chose to ignore my request for that feature (I'm a paid user).
2. For some reason that I've yet to figure out, Nova includes its own setting to automatically add apps to your Home screen, as though the feature already present in the Google Play Store wasn't (annoying) enough. And of course it defaults to ON, so you have to remember to turn it off.

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[antman451]

The main thing I prefer about Nova Launcher is the scrolling dock.

Playing around with it a couple days, I totally agree. That is much more handy and makes for a cleaner interface.

 

[steve_ma]

Agree on the scrolling dock. I experimented with a bunch of home screen configurations but I keep going back to the scrolling dock and cleaned up look. I put common apps in folders and drop them in the dock. Cleaner and it feels faster and more efficient than than scrolling home screens. 90% of what I do with my phone I access from this screen with 1 or 2 taps. ....

I'm sure i'll get bored in a month or so and change it all up again just because I can ;-)

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[Jay Sacks]

Try Apex. I have both and prefer Apex over Nova. With Apex you can backup and restore to the SD card. I think Apex has more features and runs much smoother than Nova. Great support.

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[ansextra]

You can also put folders in the dock.

 

[Comp625]

IMO, Nova provides a similar but enhanced user experience compared to stock Touchwiz. As others have mentioned, being able to group shortcuts into folders on both the homescreen AND app drawer is awesome.

I also love being able to modify the number of columns and rows available to shortcuts on both the homescreen and app drawer. Touchwiz is limited in that regard, and IMO, it results in wasted space.

Lastly, my favorite feature is being able to customize the speed of transitions (e.g. when scrolling from one page to the next in the app drawer). I have mine set to the 2nd-to-fastest setting and it really makes my phone feel slick. Such customizable minutia is, again, not available in Touchwiz.

Compared to Apex, I think Nova provides a cleaner experience upon install. Apex didn't seem quite as polished (e.g. icon sizes seemed slightly large). Although I only tried the free version, I didn't see the same amount of customizations seen in Nova.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy SIII

 

[Kaedibyrd]

Two things Apex doesn't do: you can also swipe over icons to get an additional action; Nova organizes the icons in your icon packs into groups. Very handy with big fancy icon packs.

from the galaxy, with love

 

[joebloggs13]

Another one for Nova here. After trying both, Nova seemed to run smoother on my phone. I also like the jesture capabilities Nova offers.

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