Why a launcher??

[Janet OSully]

Can someone please tell me what the benefit of using a launcher app is? Thanks... New to this....

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[anon(92475)]

Not having to look at TouchWiz on the home screen for one. Another benefit is more functionality. To give an example, I use Action Launcher 3. It has a quick page with whatever I want to put on there instead of having a second or third page on my home screen.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[bbtkd]

Can someone please tell me what the benefit of using a launcher app is? Thanks... New to this....

Posted via the Android Central App

I use Nova Prime, primarily for greater density of icons on the screen. I have a lot of apps and my screen grid is 6 rows by 4 columns, plus a 6 icon dock row . Could actually squeeze more in, but 30 is enough. The selectable effects are cool too.

 

[jcp007]

I resisted for a couple of years when I had a not great experience with Apex launcher on my GS3. I recently decided to give Nova Prime a try. TouchWiz was fine and the UI has been slimmed down so that third party launchers were more of an option with the GS6.

Launchers let you take device customization further with different icon packs and configurations. You can mix and match icons from different icon packs. Tesla Unread allows unread message badges. You can lock the homescreens so that they don't change. You can save the different setups and switch back and forth. You can choose different homescreen animations like wipe or fade. You can set up gestures to do different things similar to shortcuts. My only problem is finding an icon pack to stick with.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[johnmcc0710]

I had an S4 and didn't like it because of Touchwiz and ended with an HTC M8 and found Nova Launcher. I now have an S6 on AT&T and Touchwiz is better but Nova Launcher is still the best. It gives you backups and many more customization features. Nova is the best out there and worth a try. Start with the free version and see how you like it.

 

[Janet OSully]

THANK YOU... gonna try nova☺

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[FiveOverEight]

Apex Launcher Pro user here.

Icon Packs, Gestures, Hiding bloatware apps (if required), and it just looks better!

Can't understand why anyone would want to use TouchWiz. You'd have thought that Google would have noticed this and implemented it into Google Now launcher.

 

[jcp007]

THANK YOU... gonna try nova☺

Posted via the Android Central App

I believe the Prime version enables things like unread badge count.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[deeb215]

THANK YOU... gonna try nova☺

Posted via the Android Central App

I was you not too long ago:

http://forums.androidcentral.com/samsung-galaxy-s6/527891-fence-nova.html

 

[Jamez Avila]

THANK YOU... gonna try nova☺

Posted via the Android Central App

Excellent choice. You won't be disappointed with the customization options.

Posted from my AT&T Samsung Galaxy S6

 

[justnivek]

Step 1. Download Nova launcher (make sure you don't download N.O.V.A that is a game)

Step 2. Type in "Icon Pack" on the google play store and look for a nice (maybe free) icon pack, (protip: type in square/circle etc if you want that shape they usually come up if you do)

Step 3. Check out/tweak ALL the settings (long hold the home screen, tap settings and you'll see a WHOLE world of options, it'll make your phone YOUR OWN like no one elses.

Step 4a. (Optional) download a Galaxy S6 theme from the theme store to change your Drop down icons/notifacation bar and system apps to match your Icon pack

Step 4. Add widgets, I recoomend Google news and weather widget, aswell as "Digital xperia clock widget"

Step 5 Enojy!

 

[jcp007]

If you think that you may be interested in Nova Prime, you have to install the free version first.

 

[Saros]

You can set up gestures to do different things similar to shortcuts.

Nova's flexibility with gestures has been a true game-changer for me, I absolutely love the customization options.

My only problem is finding an icon pack to stick with.

I know the feeling! Turning into an icon pack/wallpaper hunting addict. It's fun though, and thankfully not an expensive hobby.

 

[jcp007]

Nova's flexibility with gestures has been a true game-changer for me, I absolutely love the customization.



I know the feeling! Turning into an icon pack/wallpaper hunting addict. It's fun though, and thankfully not an expensive hobby.

Moonshine is the only free app that I have tried. All others including the launcher were paid, still not a huge expense.

 

[krazyatom]

just like OP I had no idea what those launcher do. So basically I can change the default launcher to nova? I want snappier experience. That's my priority.

 

[Jamez Avila]

just like OP I had no idea what those launcher do. So basically I can change the default launcher to nova? I want snappier experience. That's my priority.

Yes, download Nova and check it out. You can ways delete the app if you don't like it but I think you will.

Posted from my AT&T Samsung Galaxy S6

 

[bbtkd]

just like OP I had no idea what those launcher do. So basically I can change the default launcher to nova? I want snappier experience. That's my priority.

I don't know that it would be any snappier. I think that resource consumption by apps determines snappiness.

 

[DroidN3WB]

I use Themer - it is amazing. I can make my phone my own.

 

[syspry]

just like OP I had no idea what those launcher do. So basically I can change the default launcher to nova? I want snappier experience. That's my priority.

No launcher will do that for you. Launchers run on top of the stock launcher in the sense that unless you've rooted and then disabled the stock launcher (not recommended if you have a bad memory and forget to reenable it when needed!) it will still be there. Not consuming resources, but still there. A custom launcher doesn't actually make any physical changes to the speed of the ROM itself. What Nova cleverly does is run as a cached service rather than openly appearing in your running app RAM. The only thing the 'speed' setting in Nova does is open up apps that are launched from the home screen and scroll between home screens slightly quicker by reducing animation time and scale, which is something you can also do in developer options without any launcher.

What a launcher will not do is actually speed up the phone itself. It won't supercharge your hardware, CPU cycles of RAM access. Apps won't run any quicker while being used, games won't perform any better, browsers won't load pages any faster, the camera won't take quicker photos, etc.

Another thing to be mindful of when using a launcher or other tool to reduce animation times and scale is that if you boost them too much you can actually introduce slight stutter. That's because sometimes animations serve as a kind of mask to disguise loading times to give the perception that things are loading smoothly if not faster. This is something you would definitely notice if Apple allowed you to remove or reduce all of those pretty animations on an iPhone. iPhones are optimized well but those animations play a small part of that fluid appearance. If they weren't there I'm guessing you'd probably notice load time stutter.

tl;dr version - launchers aren't capable of speeding up your phone beyond the limits of the hardware or ROM installed on your phone. The "lag" people complained about in older versions of Touchwiz wasn't associated with the TW launcher itself, it was because of the overall TW skin Samsung installed over the Android OS itself, which is something launchers don't replace or affect in any way. If snappier is what you're after, you're only going to achieve that by flashing a custom ROM that has all of the built in bloat from stock removed

 

[jcp007]

Being a newb to third party launchers, I am just enjoying the increased customization options and watching people expecting TouchWiz, Sense or UX running on the phone actually doing a slight double take. Maybe I missed a Nova setting but I don't see the parallax effect where it looks like the icons appear to be painted into screen and floating above the wallpaper.