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HTC Sense put to shame

novox77

Leeeroy Jennnkinnns!
Jul 7, 2010
3,964
3,257
Until a few minutes ago, I was a fan of HTC sense. But only because I had never tried any other home/launcher apps. Through reading several threads here, I learned about ADW Launcher and Launcher Pro. I downloaded both and tried them out. Wow. It's amazing how customizeable these home apps are. If you haven't tried them, you really should.

Sense is nice, and it comes with decent widgets, but it is pretty rigid. Makes me rethink the need for custom roms that include Sense....
 
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I'm glad Sense is around. Not everyone needs to customize the hell out of their phones. They just want functionality.

And the launchers I mentioned come with more functionality out of the box. Landscape support, scrollable docks for less screen clutter, adjustable number of homescreens to suit your needs, etc.

I'm not looking for aesthetics; I'm looking for function, and what I see is better user interface, and customizations geared toward both form and function.
 
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And the launchers I mentioned come with more functionality out of the box. Landscape support, scrollable docks for less screen clutter, adjustable number of homescreens to suit your needs, etc.

I'm not looking for aesthetics; I'm looking for function, and what I see is better user interface, and customizations geared toward both form and function.

Sorry, but noobs don't want to be screwing around. They seem to find all the functionality they need with Sense, without force closes, betas, and head scratching.
 
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When I can get a decent package of widgets that perform as flawlessly as my Sense widgets, I will consider changing. Up to this point, I have tried both the ADW Launcher and Launcher Pro and they clearly have more "bugs" than Sense does. The "best" weather widget for Launcher Pro (from Beautiful Widgets) is off by 20 degrees, for crying out loud. I have tried the alternatives and I am not what you would consider a "noob" when it comes to technology, but I still like Sense for the fact that it all works so smoothly, compared to the other 2.
 
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I get no bugs with either LP or ADW. The docks add a lot more functionality..Sense sucks in comparison in that regard. The only Sense widgets that I used much, and I really liked them, were Friend Stream and News. There for some insane reason is now good News/RSS widget out there, but there is Pure Messenger, which kicks the crap out of Friend Stream. Also Launcher Pro(with a paid version) is developing Sense clone widgets, a couple are done I think. If he gets a scrolling RSS widget going he'll get my $. I wish those two launchers would combine some features. Docks and the slick fade in and out animation to ADW, and gestures and screen/widget sizing to LP. Developer of LP said he'd never put in gestures which is a shame. It's sweet to be able to flick down anywhere on the screen to bring down the notification bar.
 
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Yeah, I think I will give Sense a try when the stock Froyo ROM is available. It'd be nice if its updated a bit. I wasn't intending to bash Sense; it had served me well for the two months I've had my phone.

In switching to ADW and Launcher Pro, I had the same feeling when I switched from my Blackberry to my Evo. Wow. Didn't realize that smartphones could have more useful features and be more fun to use. And there will always be people who will look down at devices like Evo stick to their blackberries. Nothing wrong with that. That's how I felt when I tried an iPhone during my Blackberry days.

My post was mainly to share my revelation and to encourage people to try a new home/launcher app who maybe didn't realize there were other alternatives around.
 
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If you are getting force closes on LP then you have other issues going on with your device. I have been using LP for the past month and have not gotten one force close from it. It is stable and I call BS on anyone who says it is not....

There is also a scrolling RSS/weather widget that was pulled from the nexus 1 I believe that is better then the one on Sense as Sense cuts off the words in the widget. You can search XDA for it.

There is also some great weather programs out there. You just need to look for them! Along with the ability to have scrollable widgets, LP cannot be beat!!!!!

I used to be a fan of Sense but see no need for it anymore. Every widget I have found for LP has outdone any Sense widget I have used.

Edit....The weather program is located here:
http://www.appbrain.com/app/org.koxx.forecast_weather.v2

The paid version lets you change the icons and backgrounds but you can checkout the free version. Also, in the settings menu you can change where you can pull US data from so you do not need to use Google's which is wrong
 
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i LOVE Launcher Pro but only have 1 major concern.. i missed a very important email the other day when i switched from Sense to Launcher Pro.. i had a Gmail and Exchange icon on my phone and was waiting for the 1 or 2 to appear and tell me i had new email to check.. never saw anything.. when i manually checked my email, i had missed 9 emails total and decided to leave them as is and maybe it was a syncing issue.. but no.. the 9 never showed up on the Exchange Mail icon i had on the main screen..

is there a fix for this or whats going on? i have since tried to make the icon with 1 unread email.. the 1 was on top of the Exchange and never went away with new mail or no unread emails.. someone help me out with this one..
 
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After running cyonagenmod6 on my evo I am not looking back. Sense is garbage and slow. Stock Android FTW!!!
Once cyanomod6 gets the 4G and camera working then I will surely install it.

As for the OP, you say you downloaded and tried both ADW and launcherPro, but you did not specify which one you like best.

TS
 
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If you are getting force closes on LP then you have other issues going on with your device. I have been using LP for the past month and have not gotten one force close from it. It is stable and I call BS on anyone who says it is not....

There is also a scrolling RSS/weather widget that was pulled from the nexus 1 I believe that is better then the one on Sense as Sense cuts off the words in the widget. You can search XDA for it.

There is also some great weather programs out there. You just need to look for them! Along with the ability to have scrollable widgets, LP cannot be beat!!!!!

I used to be a fan of Sense but see no need for it anymore. Every widget I have found for LP has outdone any Sense widget I have used.

Edit....The weather program is located here:
Weather forecast widget v2 - Android app on AppBrain

The paid version lets you change the icons and backgrounds but you can checkout the free version. Also, in the settings menu you can change where you can pull US data from so you do not need to use Google's which is wrong

Iam using launcher pro and get force close when I rotate, had to turn it off, which was one of the main reasons I switched. Do you have it set to rotate? What are your memory settings? I have tired several variations but still happens from time to time. adw was stable for me but I like LP better, the scrollable dock bar is great and the transitions seem smoother to me.
 
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I'm running launcher pro but think people overrate it. When I bring up app drawer half of my apps aren't there sometimes, widgets don't load sometimes, and haven't seen any noticeable difference in performance. Also htc sense home screen weather widget looks better

I do like how if you turn your phone sideways ur home screens and apps will too and love the scrollable dock. If htc sense had the dick I'd be running sense
 
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I forget which: ADW or LaunchPro, but one of them had settings to enable email counts on the mail icons. They were off by default, which I thought was ******ed. Take a look through all the settings and see if you find it.


-edit-
lol, re-tar-ded is censored??

enabled the Gmail Icon update and doesnt have one for All Emails'

still nothing though. i have 1 for Exchange and there are 2 unread emails. nothing for Gmail and i have 2 unread aswell... so i dont know..
 
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After running cyonagenmod6 on my evo I am not looking back. Sense is garbage and slow. Stock Android FTW!!!
I don't know man, I really liked how fast 2.2 was but I missed sense so much I went back to it. For me it was the little things, like the dialer for example, the stock android dialer is pretty garbage to put it nicely (dialer one isn't that much better). But the one reason why I went back was because of my keyboard. I love the HTC_IME keyboard. I used it on my evo before I flashed CM6 and couldn't get it to calibrate on 2.2. What keyboard are you using on Cyanogenmod?
 
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