How Many Of You Are Using An After Market Launcher?...

[PsychDoc]

After reading rave after rave about Nova Launcher I decided to take the plunge. I'm not very techy so I had some fears that I would be overwhelmed by all the complexity but I have to say the process of switching over was pretty painless. And now I can see what everyone is raving about. The degree of flexibility and customization is amazing. The changes are not revolutionary, mind you, but it's great to have additional flexibility regarding appearance and icon/app/widget behavior.

Any of you opting for an after market launcher go for anything other than Nova?

If so, why?

 

[red arrow]

Nova on the DNA here. It's great, lightning fast. I ran Launcher pro on my Dinc before this.

 

[WuBoy]

I use Go Launcher EX. Hell I use damn near the whole Go Line: Keyboard, Contacts, Dialer, and SMS too.

Sense isn't bad, but I just love the way you can customize things with your phone via Launchers and other programs. You can completely transform the way your phone looks. Since the display for the DNA is so great, I found a really minimalistic approach to set up my phone that really shows off the display but also give me easy access to everything I need. You can really do it with stock Android. I actually took a few screenshots, so might as well show them off.

 

[croppz]

Using Nova launcher/Prime. Great launcher, nice and fast.

 

[PatyCake]

Nova launcher here too, quick and smooth. Havent noticed a difference in battery life though, anyone know why?

 

[PsychDoc]

Nova launcher here too, quick and smooth. Havent noticed a difference in battery life though, anyone know why?

Are you suggesting that Nova uses more or less battery power than the stock launcher.

In either case do you have any links that would suggest this?

 

[Lykarsis]

Are you suggesting that Nova uses more or less battery power than the stock launcher.

In either case do you have any links that would suggest this?

On the DNA in particular, I imagine that Nova uses less batter and CPU than the stock Rosie launcher does. Sense is a very heavy UI overall and Nova is based on Stock android with several customization's added.

I run Nova on all of my devices as it is always the smoothest launcher I can find. I don't have any data to back that up mind you, but I have always found that the Rosie launcher on any phone uses more battery, RAM and CPU than most third party launchers. The one exception being Holo Launcher HD. That one always sucks a lot of resources, although I hear a lot of people have more luck than I do with it.

 

[WuBoy]

On the DNA in particular, I imagine that Nova uses less batter and CPU than the stock Rosie launcher does. Sense is a very heavy UI overall and Nova is based on Stock android with several customization's added.

I run Nova on all of my devices as it is always the smoothest launcher I can find. I don't have any data to back that up mind you, but I have always found that the Rosie launcher on any phone uses more battery, RAM and CPU than most third party launchers. The one exception being Holo Launcher HD. That one always sucks a lot of resources, although I hear a lot of people have more luck than I do with it.

Doesn't Sense always run in the background though? So no matter what extra launcher you use, Sense will always drain some battery.

 

[El Presidente]

Doesn't Sense always run in the background though? So no matter what extra launcher you use, Sense will always drain some battery.

Yep, you can remove active widgets on sense to limit the drain though (although it's minimal anyway).

 

[Damar1979]

Yep, you can remove active widgets on sense to limit the drain though (although it's minimal anyway).

Exactly how is that done?

 

[El Presidente]

Just switch back to Sense as the default launcher, remove the widgets as you would normally and then put Nova/Apex etc back as your default.

 

[Phatninja55]

I use halo launcher, I like it very much.
It's pretty fast, and its ics themed.

 

[unccman]

After seeing this posted over at Lifehacker, I decided to recreate it and have been very happy with how slick this looks. I've had several compliments on it already.

You can follow the same instructions I did if you'd like to recreate

 

[Lykarsis]

Doesn't Sense always run in the background though? So no matter what extra launcher you use, Sense will always drain some battery.

Sense is the UI, so unless you install a ROM that doesn't have sense, then yes it will be running. You are using it so it can't go to sleep. The Rosie launcher (the sense launcher) is another story. You could always root and remove it. But if you don't want to do that, just select your alternate launcher as default and restart. The Rosie launcher will hibernate until you select it again.

 

[geli7]

I recently started using Nova and am having some issues with the phone often reverting to sense. When I opened Nova for the first time, I got the message asking which launcher I would like to use as the default and I selected Nova. Every now and again though I’ll notice that the launcher is sense. Whenever I hit the home button it reverts back to Nova, but it’s kind of annoying. It’s hard for me to come up with examples of which apps make the launcher revert but one that I’ve definitely noticed is google talk. If I back out of the app rather than hitting home, it’s the Sense launcher rather than Nova.
Also, I don’t know if this is any way related but it might be, this morning my alarm went off at the wrong time. It was set for 6:30 AM, it went off at 6:40 AM. The clock on the phone indicated 6:40 AM. I use the clock app that comes stock with the phone, is it possible it runs off the sense launcher and that one had the wrong time? I never had an issue with the alarm clock going off at the wrong time prior to changing launchers.
Anybody know what’s going on? Any help is appreciated, thanks!

 

[Lykarsis]

I recently started using Nova and am having some issues with the phone often reverting to sense. When I opened Nova for the first time, I got the message asking which launcher I would like to use as the default and I selected Nova. Every now and again though I

 

[exmobR]

I'm so content with action launcher, give me the hide apps option and I'd be ecstatic lol.

 

[CrackedLCD]

I'm using Go Launcher, as well as several other products of theirs. I like it pretty well and it's really smooth on the DNA; I have it mostly set up the same on my Galaxy S Showcase and it's very laggy there.

One thing that puzzles me though is I cannot seem to get back to the stock launcher. On the GSS it's as simple as exiting Go Launcher in the settings, or removing the default. Only on the DNA there's no default listed for Go and exit only reloads Go Launcher again. Short of uninstalling it, I dunno how to get back to Sense (I never actually checked it out when I got the phone so I may have widgets running there, draining the battery!)

 

[Lykarsis]

I'm using Go Launcher, as well as several other products of theirs. I like it pretty well and it's really smooth on the DNA; I have it mostly set up the same on my Galaxy S Showcase and it's very laggy there.

One thing that puzzles me though is I cannot seem to get back to the stock launcher. On the GSS it's as simple as exiting Go Launcher in the settings, or removing the default. Only on the DNA there's no default listed for Go and exit only reloads Go Launcher again. Short of uninstalling it, I dunno how to get back to Sense (I never actually checked it out when I got the phone so I may have widgets running there, draining the battery!)

Have you tried going to settings>apps>go launcher and force close it then clear defaults?

 

[CrackedLCD]

Have you tried going to settings>apps>go launcher and force close it then clear defaults?

That didn't work, but it led me to the solution and I feel like such a mallet-head for not figuring it out myself: I have Go Locker installed and it acts as the home screen program instead of Go Launcher. I cleared its default and was able to get back to Sense.

Now that I've played with Sense, it's actually not as bad as I thought it would be. I don't like the limitation of 16 apps per folder but the transparent status bar is a nice touch. There's an option to enable transparent status bar in Go Launcher but it doesn't seem to work.

Turns out I did have a few widgets on the Sense screens, so I deleted all of them and eliminated all but a few basic home screens to see if it makes a difference with the battery. Tonight's going to be a good test: I started off today with 100% at 3 pm and I'm already down to 69% and all I've done so far is play around with Sense and Go Launcher.

 

[Lykarsis]

That didn't work, but it led me to the solution and I feel like such a mallet-head for not figuring it out myself: I have Go Locker installed and it acts as the home screen program instead of Go Launcher. I cleared its default and was able to get back to Sense.

Now that I've played with Sense, it's actually not as bad as I thought it would be. I don't like the limitation of 16 apps per folder but the transparent status bar is a nice touch. There's an option to enable transparent status bar in Go Launcher but it doesn't seem to work.

Turns out I did have a few widgets on the Sense screens, so I deleted all of them and eliminated all but a few basic home screens to see if it makes a difference with the battery. Tonight's going to be a good test: I started off today with 100% at 3 pm and I'm already down to 69% and all I've done so far is play around with Sense and Go Launcher.

Glad you figure it out have you tried ADWex launcher? it has a lot of themes and Icon packs and is really good for anyone who loves customization but is tired of Go Launcher.

 

[funkbucket007]

I use Nova Prime on my DNA, Nexus 7 and Galaxy Nexus. Love it.

 

[BigCiX]

Nova Prime for me

 

[victek]

I use Nova Prime on my DNA, Nexus 7 and Galaxy Nexus. Love it.

I decided to try Nova since I've been using Widget Locker for a while. They are both made by TeslaCoil Software and they get along well. There's also an add-on called TeslaUnread which adds unread message and missed call counters to the appropriate icons - works in both Nova and Widget Locker.