Dumping Wear Mini Launcher (permissions) for Apollo Wear Launcher

[electricpete]

The available playstore update of Wear mini launcher from version 5.6.9. (to version 5.6.19 I think) is asking for additional permissions to SMS, phone and "mail" (whatever that is). I don't think there's any sane reason that a simple app drawer should need permission to my SMS or phone functions.

So I looked for a replacement and found apollo wear launcher ... it’s a nice free app that does roughly the same thing but without the permissions. A video is here:

Comparison:

Apollo has better gesture launch: First advantage: Wear Mini Laauncher gesture shortcut requires you to slide from the extreme left side of screen toward right.... but that's the exact same gesture that you need in many other contexts (like if you've swiped right on a notification and then want to swipe back left), so inevitably you will launch the wear mini launcher many times when you don't intend to. In contrast the Apollo wear launcher gesture shortcut is unique: it starts at lower left of screen and swipes diagonally up (first advantage..won't trigger that by accident). If you release the swipe in the middle of the screen, it launches the apollo quick settings. If you release the swipe at the upper right hand corner of the screen, it launches the apollo app launcher. So that’s a second advantage... one quick gesture from watchface to either quick settings or app launcher... dont' need two gestures to get to the quick settings like wear mini launcher (I like the ability to quickly tweak my brightness). You can of course launch either launcher from an app shortcut on your watchface (rather than gesture launch) if you use watchmaker or other face that allows that type of thing.

Wear Mini launcher has slightly better app launcher interferace on round watches: Both let you hide apps that you don’t use frequently (a great feature to unclutter the app drawer). As for bookmarked/frequently used apps, wear mini launchers places them at the beginning, Apollo mini launcher places them on a side panel… which is more elegant in some ways, but takes up space for scrolling through all apps. Apollo allows to set up my moto 360 2014 as either a round watch or square watch. If I pretend it’s a square watch, then as expected there are some things that don’t work well: 1 – the gesture launch feature doesn’t work; 2 – the bar for the frequently-used/bookmarked apps doesn’t work as well… tends to hide the app at the top of the list. If I tell Apollo the truth about my round watch, then it does some “clever” manipulations with the apps on the left side of the list during scrolling so they expand/contract to follow the watch's round countour (see the video). It’s a novel idea but a little bit distracting and makes it harder to find an app quickly… I’d actually prefer the simpler approach of wear launcher which also resembles what I get if I tell Apollo my watch is square. But assuming I tell the app that my watch is round (so I can use the gesture launch), then I’m forced to accept it. It’s tolerable when you select a width of two columns for the app drawer. But if I select three columns of apps, then I have to get rid of my side bookmarks bar on the right in order to make enough room to be able to see the apps on the left as I slide through.

So in summary, I’d say the gesture launch is better for Apollo. The drawer itself is slightly better for wear mini launcher (if you have a round watch... square watch not much difference). The tie breaker for me is the silly wear mini launcher permissions. Uninstalling.

btw if you're thinking about trying out Apollo, you don't have to uninstall Wear Mini Launcher to try out Apollo...they can peacefully coexist on the same watch. That's what I did... didn't uninstall Wear Mini launcher until I was sure I was switching to Apollo.

 

[The_Chief]

The saving grace of this app was the ability to switch watch faces. No way was I going to walk around with a butterfly on my wrist

Looks promising!

 

[rojaroid]

I definitely liked Apollo over Swipy or Mini. Is there a way to bring up the custom weather (in my case Aeris - which if you havent checked out are surely missing something awesome) app via voice ?

Also - the Launcher Exclusion Apps - is it working for anyone ? Just seems to ignore this list

 

[rojaroid]

The saving grace of this app was the ability to switch watch faces. No way was I going to walk around with a butterfly on my wrist

Looks promising!

How did you switch watchface ?

 

[electricpete]

I definitely liked Apollo over Swipy or Mini. Is there a way to bring up the custom weather (in my case Aeris - which if you havent checked out are surely missing something awesome) app via voice ?

In general, you can say "ok google... start AppName" to start an app.
Examples that work for me:
ok google... start Keep
ok google... start LookBehind
ok google... start evernote
ok google... start calculator (starts this app if installed)
ok google... start calendar (starts this app if installed)

But it doesn't quite recognize all app names.
ok google...start Aeris Wear Weather... doesn't work for me.
ok google... start weather...doesn't work for me (brings up agenda...wtf)
ok google... what's the weather... gives the weather but not in the Aeris weather app.

Above comes from google... doesn't really depend on your watchface or on your app launcher to my knowledge.

btw, I agree, Aeris is slick. The first three displays are very simple and easy to read. The 4th which is the weather radar seems sort of a gimmick...doesn't animate. Overall I like the displays better than the built weather app in on my moto 360. Except that the built in weather app loads faster than Aeris... which seems to take 5 seconds or more every time I launch it.

Also - the Launcher Exclusion Apps - is it working for anyone ? Just seems to ignore this list

Sure, works fine for me. When I am in an app that is on the launcher exclusion list, the quick-launch shortcut is inactive as expected. If by chance you want to hide infrequently used apps so they don't clutter up your launcher app list instead...that's a different function located under "drawer settings" / "hide apps".

How did you switch watchface ?

Long press on an empty area of the watchface (not one that is tappable). That should shrink the watchface. From there you can swipe left and right to get different watchface apps.... standard way to switch among watchface apps.

 

[The_Chief]

How did you switch watchface ?

Yes, I switched to Odyssey watchface. Love it

 

[rojaroid]

In general, you can say "ok google... start AppName" to start an app.
...............
ok google... what's the weather... gives the weather but not in the Aeris weather app.

Right - I knew the above, that's why I was wondering if there was another way to bring up custom weather app via voice. I asked Aeris if they could replace the default app, they said do-no-evil-google has locked weather to their own (weather.com) (cr)app

The 4th which is the weather radar seems sort of a gimmick...doesn't animate.

Seriously a gimmick? I was so impressed with the map, I dont care if it doesnt animate, it should at least show current radar - can someone confirm

Except that the built in weather app loads faster than Aeris... which seems to take 5 seconds or more every time I launch it.

Kinda same load time for me for both, except that I wish it could cache the screens, if there is a disconnect (which happens so often with my crappy Xperia, it gives the 'Unfortunately stopped' screen

Sure, works fine for me. When I am in an app that is on the launcher exclusion list, the quick-launch shortcut is inactive as expected. If by chance you want to hide infrequently used apps so they don't clutter up your launcher app list instead...that's a different function located under "drawer settings" / "hide apps".

Wow, thanks for that tip, totally missed the hide apps button since I was focused on the LX button. Love the way it takes effect immediately ! But I still didnt get the point of the LX list, why show a shortcut if its gonna be inactive ??

Long press on an empty area of the watchface (not one that is tappable). That should shrink the watchface. From there you can swipe left and right to get different watchface apps.... standard way to switch among watchface apps.

Lol - yeah I knew that, but I was used to the Bits launcher, with which if you change watch face, you lose Bits functionality too..thanks again for the heads up !

 

[rojaroid]

If you release the swipe in the middle of the screen, it launches the apollo quick settings. .

Thats a great tip ! For the life of me I was trying to figure out where I had seen that two-line screen with brightness and was b*tch-swiping my watch face to no avail. Hopefully they will make that list customizable, if not already. This is a great example of how a Wear app should be. Wish they had a multi-screen mini tutorial about the swipes.

 

[rojaroid]

One issue though - the app needs to timeout - while I like it that it doesnt rudely disappear like most watch faces, there needs to be a timeout after say a minute of non-activity

 

[electricpete]

An example of when would you want to put an app in launcher exclusion list? Let's say you scroll around on google Maps a lot. When you swipe from lower left to center, you want it to move the map, not to bring up the Apollo shortcut. So you put the Maps app into Apollo exclusion list and the Apollo shortcut gestures will be disabled while you're using Maps.

I called the Aeris weather map screen (on watch) a gimmick because I don't use it for anything other than to show off to folks (everyone thinks it looks cool). But a non-moving weather map doesn't tell me much useful, especially when there is already an every-three-hour forecast available in the app. The weather map on the watch does appear to be reasonably accurate based on comparison to the weather map that I get when I launch the Aeris app on my phone (which is animated btw)

I was mistaken about the stock weather app being quicker. The stock weather app brings up the old forecast (from the last time you ran the app) immediately, and then refreshes it over the next several seconds. I guess that's the screen caching feature you mentioned. It gives the illusion of being fast but it's not really much faster.

You're right, the Apollo launcher doesn't time out the screen. There are a few other apps like that (example google keep). Could burn up an lot off battery. I haven't thought much about it, but I think that when I'm done messing around on my watch I usually swipe left to right (from whatever app I'm in) which takes me back to the watchface.

 

[rojaroid]

An example of when would you want to put an app in launcher exclusion list? Let's say you scroll around on google Maps a lot. When you swipe from lower left to center, you want it to move the map, not to bring up the Apollo shortcut. So you put the Maps app into Apollo exclusion list and the Apollo shortcut gestures will be disabled while you're using Maps.

Never even thought outside the box for this, thanks I was wondering what it was doing within the app.

I called the Aeris weather map screen (on watch) a gimmick because I don't use it for anything other than to show off to folks (everyone thinks it looks cool). But a non-moving map doesn't tell me much useful, especially when there is already an every-three-hour screen available. The weather map on the watch does appear to be reasonably accurate based on comparison to the weather map that I get when I launch the Aeris app on my phone.

Yes they do need to replace that with an animated screen, hopefully it is in the works. So you dont think everytime you invoke Aeris you would get an updated radar ap ? Weather has been fairly constant here last few days lol

I was mistaken about the stock weather app being quicker. The stock weather app brings up the old forecast (from the last time you ran the app) immediately, and then refreshes it over the next several seconds. I guess that's the screen caching feature you mentioned. It gives the illusion of being fast but it's not really faster.

I want Wear developers to cache last results and show it even when there is no connection so we are not lookin at a dead watch when in the boondocks - the OS needs to overlay the words 'offline' when it is. Right now it is so boring when so many Wear apps go into a trance and some never recover when the watch/phone if offline.

You're right, the Apollo launcher doesn't time out the screen. There are a few other apps like that (example google keep). I haven't thought much about it, but I think that when I'm done messing around on my watch I usually swipe left to right (from whatever app I'm in) which takes me back to the watchface.

Naah Keep is smart enough to timeout after some time (but not smart enough to take voice notes (audio file) when offline apparently). I hear what you say, I do the same too, but sometimes you get distracted you forget to swipe away to close elegantly. No app on watch is worthy to not time out. Speaking of which, I get irritated when the watch face goes away so quickly - wish they come out with a setting for that

PS: Didn't mean to hijack, but have you checked out their Inspector App yet ? As expected, its waaay cooler than other similar apps !

 

[TexasBadger]

I have created 10 custom watch faces using WatchMaker Premium. All are analog. On each one, I have added a tiny dot at dead center, configured to run Aeris Weather as an "action". So, touch the center of any of my watch faces and Aeris Weather pops up. Works perfectly every time.

 

[electricpete]

+ 1 for watchmaker. Can download tons of free watchfaces and customize, or build your own from scratch.

I only have one custom watchface and I use it pretty much all the time (except brief periods when I change to another to show off a face or celebrate a sporting event with a sports team watchface). It's digital with a focus on info and functionality...probably ugly compared to texasbadger's faces. With just one watchface every day, I know that single watchface like the back of my hand (wrist?) and I can remember all the stuff I put on there. The touch actions that I have on my single custom watchmaker face are:
* Google Keep
* Flashlight
* Turn phone data on - uses Tasker with root. (I can also turn phone wifi on using the apollo quick menu).
* Calendar
* Screen Brightness Boost to max for 60 seconds and then revert to normal (Tasker + autowear)
* Keep screen on for the next 60 seconds and then revert to normal timeout (Tasker plus autower)
* Built in weather app. (I can't get Aeris to work as a tap action. There are two "weather" apps listed but only one of them works for me when launched from Watchmaker. Not sure what I'm doing wrong there.)
* Wear Tasker - tapping this brings up customized nested menus to easily launch many more tasker tasks. Most often I adjust my phone volume settings (when everyone else at the beginning of a meeting reaches for their phone to silence it, I just use my watch). I've got about 10 more Tasker things loaded in there and will be adding a few more.

I could even add quite a few more tap actions onto my watchface without squeezing them so tight that they're tough to tap. One thing that helps to fit a lot of them onto the watchface is putting them around the very outside of the face where you can touch your fat finger so most of it is off the face and it only overlaps slightly onto the face at the touch location without hitting anything else.

I also have four items loaded to my quick-launch sidebar on Apollo:
1 - Aeris weather (because I can't get it to work directly on the watchface)
2 - Lightr App to tweak my screen timeout ...settings in the free version are 10 sec, 30 sec, or or 60 sec.
3 - Find my phone
4- "close app". This is an apollo built-in action. Handy in the rare event than an app hangs up... I can close it out rather than just press the button to go to watchface without closing the app.

PS: Didn't mean to hijack, but have you checked out their Inspector App yet ? As expected, its waaay cooler than other similar apps !

It's not a hijack at all. This thread was pretty much dead and destined to float into oblivion. This is the liveliest this forum has been in awhile. I'm still in the honeymoon period with my 3-month-old 2014 Moto 360... love to talk about it (as you can tell from my rambling above) and hear what other people are doing. I'll check out that Inspector app.