I still cry myself to sleep after the premature death of Windows Mobile, so I use Launcher10, which brings the Tiles back to life.
I started experimenting with a super minimalist Folder Launcher, but it doesn’t seem ready for release yet, a couple of crucial (IMO) features (like default settings, bulk edits, proper apps list) are still missing.
There’s also Fossify Launcher Beta, which is an open source launcher. It’s fairly basic, but gets the job done. A super cool feature of the Fossify apps (since two releases ago) is the option to set your own fonts from a file, so I’m running their Calendar, Phone, Contacts, Calculator, etc., all with the Nothing Phone’s dot font.
Yeah every battery in my 4 lasted a winter before having to be replaced. Not sure that’s all that environmentally friendly.
My battery (on fp2) lasted some 8 yrs before giving up, are your winter especially harsh ?
Dragon launcher is what I use, lawnchair is also alright
Long time Nova user, trying out others now because the Pixel launcher is too boring.
Niagara for a scaled down ui. 8 apps on the home screen, rest is in a super easy to reach list on the edges of the screen. Currently on day 3 and liking it. Paid version is either €12 a year or €40 lifetime. Basically all the flashy stuff you see of it is locked behind the paywall.
Hyperion is good, pretty close Nova relative. UX needs tweaking. Dock and home screen are completely separated so you can open a folder in the dock and one on the home screen at the same time. Minor things like that.
Octopi I did a quick review of on the other site. Tl;dr navigation / interaction is kinda laggy (gestures, tapping, moving things), doesn’t have google feed integration but customization is top tier, better than nova imo. I left it because of the interaction issues.
Smart Launcher is built around a search function. Not my thing so I moved on quickly. UI/UX is good though.
Thoughts on Lawnchair?
Hey, I’m using that. It works fine.
…well, I have little to no expectations from a launcher beyond “can have pages, shortcuts, widgets, and hide apps”, so there’s that. It got a few visual customization regarding icons and grid size, and so on. The biggest praise I can give them is that nothing seemed out of place or annoying.
Is there something wrong with the Nova Launcher that I should know about?
TL;DR: Sold off, dev team was (figuratively) slaughtered, OG dev is pretty much out of the picture, new owner is planning on injecting ads into the launcher and we basically know nothing else about the future of it. I.e they’re turning it into a cash grab.
That’s the whole reason I downloaded it was to get away from cash grab companies! Well I’m glad I found out, I’ll try Lawnchair now.
Kvaesitso is really nice ! And it’s open source
I really like octopi launcher
Lawnchair
Dragon Launcher. You’d be surprised of how well Radial menus actually work with touchscreens. It’s great, you don’t want to go back afterwards.
Edit: radial
I use Pie Launcher on mine, but then again i am a bit strange at times.
Here is how it looks like for me.
You should be using PieFed with the Pie launcher.
That’s awesome I hate it
Bruh what the fever dream fuck!? Am I a fuckin normie or can someone back me on that being extra af?
Cool though
bring back USB3.0/DP out on the FP7 and I’ll bite. The FP6 going to USB2.0 screwed the pooch for me.
Want kind of use cases do you have for your phone that that’s relevant? Sure it’s nice to have, but I can’t even remember when I last moved files to/from my phone
As another commenter said, seedvault is a huge part of it. That, and when I am taking video to upload somewhere, it would take forever to transfer a 20-120 minute 4k file.
And file transfer isnt the only reason. Android 16/17 are bringing desktop docking features, and thats s feature I’ve wanted on phones since Android 8. I have a device with DP out now, and as someone who owns a dock its a game changer for events where I need to display to something fast. I can’t wait for it to be a fully fleshed out DE. (Not to mention the fact that Chromecast is a shitty format that my is doesnt even support)
Fast Seedvault offline backups. Say you’re traveling and wanna backup your phone to a fast usb ssd, or you need to transfer everything to another phone without Internet
Me too but mostly because it’s kind of awkward
KDE connect solved that issue for me nicely haha
Fairphone is nice. Flashed /e/os on it, now its even without 99% google shit :D
I use lineageOS personnally and you can install it without any google apps as well. And the updates are quite frequent.
Had LineageOS on it previously, but the official support of e/os means automatic updates.
Have you had issues receiving group messages on e/OS? RCS is borked but I figured that would be the case. Not getting group texts is a problem though and I’ve tried every solution I can find but nothing seems to work.
Can’t tell as I don’t use RCS.
No SMS or MMS either?
yeah… my family is sadly a whatsapp family :/
Ah fair enough. Thanks for the clarification.
Removed by mod
wtf
Report and block. All that account does is spam porn.
Yep
Removed by mod
I wish they were sold in the States at a more reasonable price. Murena’s prices are ridiculous.
Yeah it’s pricey. I’m on a fairphone 4 and that was easily over $700. I have at the same time had a very easy time replacing the screen when it broke, and have just stashed several of the more breakable components, which it’s nice that I can do that super simply.
I don’t think fairphones are much cheaper from fairphone directly, though I might be wrong. Overall, I don’t game on my phone, and the fairphone 4 has been able to tackle all my needs pretty well without issue. Most of my gripes come from minor glitches or certain features lacked in lineageOS, but tbf, it’s still a very solid OS despite those minor issues.
Tariffs go brrrrr
(Good luck friend, I hope the price drops soon or that you find a good alternative :D )
Check out lawnchair. 😊
Digging it so far
Enshittification - Migration
appears to be a perpetual cycle. Stop giving Joe Rogan your $12 each month and your email provider announces it’s agenda to gargle MAGA balls… Now, all we need is an open source alternative to US healthcare…
Highjacking your comment to ask generally: Is there an easy way in lawnchair to put my apps into folders in the
dockdrawer? Going through settings is kind of tedious and the automatic caddy thing puts half of them into some catch-all category because it can’t identify their purpose.That’s so far the only thing that I find annoying about lawnchair. Nova spoilt me because it made that part so easy.
I’ve also not found a way to arrange my widgets without padding between them. That’s a bit unfortunate because it means my todo list doesn’t fit next to my calendar anymore but I can deal with that.
Do you mean dock or drawer? edit:
- Dock can be done by just dragging app untop of other app.
- Drawer can be done in settings:app drawer:folders
Sorry, meant drawer, had a brainfart. I know how to do it, but it’s more steps than in Nova and my lazy whiney monkey brain doesn’t like that :)
Yeeah it’s kinda unintuitive, and on several occasions have apps been removed from folders on my device after they had received an update. Still a great launcher overall. 😊
