Nova launcher for GS4

[Gravytrain]

What's your thoughts on this launcher for GS4? It seems a litter snappier to me and I like the stock look it has.

 

[wtherrell]

What's your thoughts on this launcher for GS4? It seems a litter snappier to me and I like the stock look it has.

Great launcher. Lots of customization & you can backup & restore home screens and widgets.

 

[Nick33]

What's your thoughts on this launcher for GS4? It seems a litter snappier to me and I like the stock look it has.

It's one of the best imo. Ur right, it is def quicker than touchwiz and looks closer to stock.
If you're not into custom roms or can't use one (verizon), it's a great fallback.
Other ones that are good in my opinion are apex(which is a lot like nova), and action launcher.
If i were you, I'd stay away from the go launchers. They tend to be very difficult to completely remove from your device and even have ads...
If you want something TOTALLY unique, try out buzz launcher. Its very new but is gaining incredible popularity. Its still in baby stage, but i think you'll be impressed.

 

[420benz]

Why does this phone need a Launcher?

 

[Shocky]

It's a great launcher, lots of customization.

I even use it on stock devices.

Why does this phone need a Launcher?

Samsung's launcher looks like it was designs for children, it just looks horrible and wastes space on the homescreens.

Also it's a little faster, it can't address the underlying performance issues with touchwiz but helps a little

 

[dynomot]

It's subjective, some like TW some don't. It is good however top try other launchers, you might find one you like better. What is great for you might not be for someone else. I'm glad I have a choice.

 

[Nick33]

Idk... I mean people do complain about touch wiz being laggy, and to a point, it is. Ive noticed it myself. Then i think, "but what IS laggy?" that .002 seconds it takes sometimes to move through a home screen? How fast does it really need to be lol. Buuut all things being equal, it IS laggy compared ti some other UI's so...
The screen space i totally agree with tho.
Seriously, what is the grid size like 3x3

 

[LaTuFu]

You're right, it's subjective.

But spend a little time with the TW (or the phone in general) on the S1, and you'll be quite happy with the current rendition of TW.

I had the S1 rooted, custom this, custom that, just to make the phone reasonably functional.

The S4 isn't perfect by any stretch, but I haven't seen any need to tweak it, either.

Okay, fine, I did tweak the animations in the Developer settings. You caught me.

But you got my attention, I may look at a couple of these launchers just to see what the fuss is about.

Definitely a big huge thumbs down to GO anything. Those apps are total garbage.

 

[Gravytrain]

Today's day two of using nova and I have zero complaints so far. I'm thinking I'll keep it around and pay the $4 for premium features.

 

[LaTuFu]

Great. So much for being productive this morning. I haven't played with launchers in over a year. Now I'm tweaking two.

 

[Gomjaba]

Touchwiz is ok, I just prefer Nova and with the backup feature you can wipe the phone, let google restore the apps and then nova restore your setup - done .. well apart from the save games if you play etc., but still - I love it ... especially for the option to theme the icons, change the size of dock / drawer etc. and even more importantly : Gestures .. I got a gesture configure to lock my screen .. nice when the phone is on the table

 

[Colchicine]

Why does this phone need a Launcher?

Why does a dog lick his gonads?

Specifically, there are more customizations and you have the ability to backup your home screens and restore them.

For me, I can't stand having a 5 inch screen and only having 4 rows of icons. With Nova, I have 7 and that's the sweet spot for me.

I don't want to be hindered if I ever need to do a factory reset to fix something. I will be less likely to fiddle with the phone if its acting up if I know I can reset it, and restore all the icons and widgets back the way I had them.

 

[Shocky]

It's subjective, some like TW some don't. It is good however top try other launchers, you might find one you like better. What is great for you might not be for someone else. I'm glad I have a choice.

I used to like touchwiz because on previous devices excluding the first Galaxy S, it was fast so I could forgive the colourful icons.

But now it's not even fast, so there's really not much good going for it anymore other than Samsung apps.

 

[Nick33]

Great. So much for being productive this morning. I haven't played with launchers in over a year. Now I'm tweaking two.

Lol that's hilarious LaTuFu

 

[agoodman]

quick question, may sound stupid, but im new to using launchers. will using the nova launch change the functionality of the phone, or just the way the ui looks?

 

[CimBa07]

It's one of the best imo. Ur right, it is def quicker than touchwiz and looks closer to stock.
If you're not into custom roms or can't use one (verizon), it's a great fallback.
Other ones that are good in my opinion are apex(which is a lot like nova), and action launcher.
If i were you, I'd stay away from the go launchers. They tend to be very difficult to completely remove from your device and even have ads...
If you want something TOTALLY unique, try out buzz launcher. Its very new but is gaining incredible popularity. Its still in baby stage, but i think you'll be impressed.

I use Nova Launcher, and I love it. It just looks cleaner and wastes less space than TouchWiz. Plus, I like that I can change how the folders look, instead of being stuck with the only one that TouchWiz offers.

When I was playing around with launchers, I did try Go Launcher EX. I uninstalled it, but what do you mean it's difficult to completely remove it from the device? And what did you mean that the Verizon s4 can't run custom roms? I thought a new root method was found for the ME7 update.

 

[CimBa07]

quick question, may sound stupid, but im new to using launchers. will using the nova launch change the functionality of the phone, or just the way the ui looks?

It just changes the way the interface looks. The phone still functions the same, like the phone app still opens the phone, camera app opens camera, etc.

 

[Nick33]

I use Nova Launcher, and I love it. It just looks cleaner and wastes less space than TouchWiz. Plus, I like that I can change how the folders look, instead of being stuck with the only one that TouchWiz offers.

When I was playing around with launchers, I did try Go Launcher EX. I uninstalled it, but what do you mean it's difficult to completely remove it from the device? And what did you mean that the Verizon s4 can't run custom roms? I thought a new root method was found for the ME7 update.

What i mean is that it can leave residual files behind on ur phone. Some of them actually make their way into places you'd never look. Go ex may have changed, but i do know from experience that the original did this.
And yes, a root exploit was found and u can now root the verizon variant, but rooting and custom roms aren't the same thing. The bootloader is still locked down. People are working on it tho. Of course this is for firmware me7. Mdk, you're fine.

 

[zendroid]

My S4 is my first Android smartphone. After years with iPhone's, I am positively thrilled with how terrific the S4 is. I plan to use it exactly as it came, while I educate myself about Android.

I am a heavy smartphone user, travel a lot for work, therefore the superior functionality of Android over iOS is very useful and exciting for me. Just the 5" display alone is of extremely high value to me.

Now it's a matter of bringing myself up to speed with all my new S4 can do.

 

[SAL8116]

I love Nova Launcher. Been using it since my S3 and haven't looked back.

 

[SebaKL]

It just changes the way the interface looks. The phone still functions the same, like the phone app still opens the phone, camera app opens camera, etc.

In addition to CimBa07,
It will cut back on some of the functionality, like Samsung's "Page Buddy" or certain widget selection, which came with TouchWiz. Some of the widgets you will be able to re-download from Samsung's app store.

 

[SebaKL]

I plan to use it exactly as it came, while I educate myself about Android.

I am a heavy smartphone user, travel a lot for work, therefore the superior functionality of Android over iOS is very useful and exciting for me. Just the 5" display alone is of extremely high value to me.

Certainly TouchWiz, the stock launcher, has lots to offer. And I have absolutely not problem with it.

The reason I use Nova Prime, because just like you, I too travel for work, and I'm overall quite schedule packed person, and that is exactly why I require more out of my phone.

You can install Nova Prime, and import the design layout from touchwiz, making it pretty much identical to the stock look. But you will gain enormous amount of extra features.
I don't really care for screen transitions and many other things, in fact I set them all to "none". What I do is, increase the screen grid size. So all my calendars and widgets that pull data off my calendar, schedules, weather graphs and all kind of other info, has more room on the screen. I also like to make my icons smaller, so they don't look so large. The default 5x4 grid is just not big enough to accommodate the stuff I want to show, especially that I built my own widgets, using UCCW and Minimalistic Text. So I changed it to 7x4 and make the dock much smaller.
I also like everything to follow the same theme. So all my icons and theme colors are in sync. Making it look neat. Same apply for folders and the app drawer. Rather then scrolling through many pages, I change the grid size so I only have two pages of apps. With hidden pretty much every app I don't want to use, so they are not listed. Just the essential stuff that I need.

And there is so much more, I just don't want to turn that post in to an essay

You have a nice day, and enjoy the Android ecosystem

cheers

 

[TheAtheistReverend]

I have been using HOLO Launcher HD for a while now. It may not have quite as many "features" as Nova Prime, but it is fast and smooth and highly customizable.

I'm honestly very surprised I don't ever see anyone mention it in these threads.

 

[Nick33]

Im tellin you guys, if you want something totally unique and different from any other launcher, try Buzz launcher.
If you're more stock look kinda person tho, then it's not for you.
As i said, it's still very much in its infancy, but it's updating all the time adding more features.
And no, i don't work for them lol. I came across it reading laptop magazine and really dig it.

 

[TheAtheistReverend]

Im tellin you guys, if you want something totally unique and different from any other launcher, try Buzz launcher.
If you're more stock look kinda person tho, then it's not for you.
As i said, it's still very much in its infancy, but it's updating all the time adding more features.
And no, i don't work for them lol. I came across it reading laptop magazine and really dig it.

Tried it. Liked it.

But I am kind of a stock-ish lover. Buzz is pretty sweet, but it reminded me of a highly customizable MIUI.