Why is Go Launcher so popular?

[nitefire77]

This morning I decided to try it out and use a golauncher theme. I've been using ADW for quite awhile now. I didnt like how it was setup. Its menus looked sloppy and the app drawer just looked awful and it was frustrating trying to set it up right. I eventually gave up and set ADW as my default again. I know that Golauncher integrates with its sms app, locker app, etc, but I never even got that far to try them all out.

Anyone else dislike Go launcher?
Also, I'd been using Smart Keyboard pro and since I heard swiftkey was a really good keyboard with lots of skins i thought id give it a try. Not as good as Smart Keyboard IMO, but I'm hoping I missed something or somehow got it set up wrong that I got a bad experiance.

Anyone elses thoughts?

 

[surgerush]

This morning I decided to try it out and use a golauncher theme. I've been using ADW for quite awhile now. I didnt like how it was setup. Its menus looked sloppy and the app drawer just looked awful and it was frustrating trying to set it up right. I eventually gave up and set ADW as my default again. I know that Golauncher integrates with its sms app, locker app, etc, but I never even got that far to try them all out.

Anyone else dislike Go launcher?
Also, I'd been using Smart Keyboard pro and since I heard swiftkey was a really good keyboard with lots of skins i thought id give it a try. Not as good as Smart Keyboard IMO, but I'm hoping I missed something or somehow got it set up wrong that I got a bad experiance.

Anyone elses thoughts?

I use golauncher, I think it's something you get used to after using 1 launcher for a while. Since I've used golauncher for a while, after I tried adw, I actually didn't like adw at all. As for swift key, I also have that and really like that as well. I don't know what problems you're having, but I personally love both.

 

[nitefire77]

I think my biggest problem with swiftkey was its keys are smaller, and I have fat thumbs lol. before I used adw I've used launcher pro and a few others I don't remember. I am really attached to my current theme I have on adw right now too, I spent hours working on every detail lol. I have pics of my home screens in the other thread

 

[xojess09]

I really like GO Launcher. It didn't take me long to get used to it at all. I like it much better than the stock launcher.

 

[FulciLives]

I've been using ADW and I'm happy with it but I've not tried Go Launcher so maybe I'll give it a try.

 

[janderson91z]

I've used Go Launcher and ADW but Launcher Pro has been my favorite thus far.

 

[surgerush]

I've used Go Launcher and ADW but Launcher Pro has been my favorite thus far.

The pr4oblem with Launcher Pro is it's never updated anymore... It hasn't been updated in like 8 months.

 

[Mitchell99]

I just started using go launcher with ICS theme plus go locker, lock screen widget and I love it. It has completely eliminated all lag I was experiencing. Plus I like how you can change the dock applications and icons (I'm sure you can do this with other home launchers but I haven't tried others) so no more double text notifications. I really like the animated effects and it's running incredibly smooth. Wish I would have tried it earlier.

 

[FulciLives]

Well I downloaded Go Launcher and played with it some and it seemed fine but I didn't see anything that I liked better than ADW and since I have ADW set up the way I like it I just switched back to that.

 

[surgerush]

Well I downloaded Go Launcher and played with it some and it seemed fine but I didn't see anything that I liked better than ADW and since I have ADW set up the way I like it I just switched back to that.

That was exactly what I was getting at... Once you've used one for a while, it just seems like the one you are using is better because you are more comfortable with it or just plain used to it.

 

[drfreeman]

I personally am fine with Samsung's TouchWiz, but is the performance really that significant by going with GoLauncher or ADW?

 

[surgerush]

I personally am fine with Samsung's TouchWiz, but is the performance really that significant by going with GoLauncher or ADW?

I stuck with touchwiz for over a month because I actually liked it, I still liked the way alot of things worked with the touchwiz, and really didn't think it would be a huge difference to switch. It makes a big difference, there's no way I'd go back.

 

[FulciLives]

I was also kewl with TouchWiz but I noticed a lil bit of slow down from time to time. Since i switched to ADW I have haven't seen any lag or slow down at all.

It's very easy to switch back so it's not that big of a deal if you try ADW or GoLauncher and then dislike them.

 

[zcarman]

There's been alot of talk about the limited storage space on the Exhibit 2, and just a quick point about SwiftKey X - it takes 8MB of storage space! That seems like a premium when there are smaller space wise keyboards out there.

 

[surgerush]

There's been alot of talk about the limited storage space on the Exhibit 2, and just a quick point about SwiftKey X - it takes 8MB of storage space! That seems like a premium when there are smaller space wise keyboards out there.

I don't know about limited storage space, I mean I know the fact that we can't move stuff directly to our external sd card may be a problem in some cases, but I still have a TON of space on my phone. When it comes to installing BIG games, then you might run into problems, but an 8mb keyboard really isn't going to make any sort of difference.

 

[ZenPit]

I use LauncherPro and I really like it. I haven't had the launcher crash on me a single time, and I rarely reboot my phone to restart it's up time.

 

[zcarman]

I don't know about limited storage space, I mean I know the fact that we can't move stuff directly to our external sd card may be a problem in some cases, but I still have a TON of space on my phone. When it comes to installing BIG games, then you might run into problems, but an 8mb keyboard really isn't going to make any sort of difference.

I may have gotten everyone confused with my Storage Space comment, I should have said system RAM...

The problem with Swiftkey is that it uses 8MB of active memory when you start it up - so we have 356MB available, and the system leaves us about 100MB left to run our Apps. So, using SwiftKey over Swype (which is already loaded in that 250 unusable MB's) will take up 10% of your available RAM. That's a big chunk of space for a keyboard. Some might say it's worth it, but I'm not so sure.

 

[surgerush]

I may have gotten everyone confused with my Storage Space comment, I should have said system RAM...

The problem with Swiftkey is that it uses 8MB of active memory when you start it up - so we have 356MB available, and the system leaves us about 100MB left to run our Apps. So, using SwiftKey over Swype (which is already loaded in that 250 unusable MB's) will take up 10% of your available RAM. That's a big chunk of space for a keyboard. Some might say it's worth it, but I'm not so sure.

Ok, I see what you're saying, which is definitely a good argument. This phone's ram sucks until you root it. If you have this phone, you really almost need to root it to get rid of all the bloatware that came on this phone. I'm a first time rooter with this phone, and I really highly suggest it to anybody, it's really not that difficult. You definitely should read up beforehand to get the just of it and some of the lingo, but I was really worried about doing it, and it turned out to be nothing. After rooting this phone and getting rid of the bloatware, it's a whole new phone, tons of free ram as well.

Although, before I had my phone rooted, I did have swiftkey then, and the phone still ran good for the most part, you just really NEED to get a new launcher, replacing touchwiz was one of the best things I did before rooting. I definitely recommend giving swiftkey a try somehow if you haven't, I was a swype user beforehand because I'm not much of a thumb typer without an actual keyboard to type on, I just can't do it on the touchscreen, even in landscape, but swiftkey is an extremely smart keyboard, it usually really does know what I want to say before I say it, and the more you use it, the smarter it gets, so most of the time I'm literally just hitting the words that swiftkey is recommending for me.

 

[sirphilk]

So I took the plunge based on the recommendations here and installed Go Launcher EX. And yes it's very nice. I read in another forum where someone was able to freeze Touchwiz after he installed another launcher so I did that too, and everything seems fine. My question then is, can I now uninstall Touchwiz without any repercussions? I would like to reclaim some of the System memory used by Touchwiz. Thanks in advance.

 

[JetpackJohn]

So I took the plunge based on the recommendations here and installed Go Launcher EX. And yes it's very nice. I read in another forum where someone was able to freeze Touchwiz after he installed another launcher so I did that too, and everything seems fine. My question then is, can I now uninstall Touchwiz without any repercussions? I would like to reclaim some of the System memory used by Touchwiz. Thanks in advance.

If everything is behaving well with the app frozen then, yes, it should be safe to uninstall.

However, I don't think the result will be what you are expecting. With the app frozen, it is currently not using any system RAM at all. Uninstalling won't change that. Also, I'm fairly certain this is a system app which means it is stored in the ROM image. Uninstalling it will not give you any additional storage space for other apps.

If it were me, I would probably just leave it frozen and use GO Launcher's hide function to get rid of the icon. Later, if you install a custom ROM, you can get rid of it in a more permanent manner.

 

[sirphilk]

If everything is behaving well with the app frozen then, yes, it should be safe to uninstall.

However, I don't think the result will be what you are expecting. With the app frozen, it is currently not using any system RAM at all. Uninstalling won't change that. Also, I'm fairly certain this is a system app which means it is stored in the ROM image. Uninstalling it will not give you any additional storage space for other apps.

If it were me, I would probably just leave it frozen and use GO Launcher's hide function to get rid of the icon. Later, if you install a custom ROM, you can get rid of it in a more permanent manner.

Yes, thank you! I decided it would be better to leave it after I read where someone had uninstalled it and then later had their phone lock up and had to do a hard reset, losing their aftermarket launcher in the process and ending up without a launcher at all, semi-bricked. Definitely not what I would want to experience. Thanks for the answer though..