What Launcher and why - Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Thought I'd start an information post on launchers since there are several to choose from.
I am currently running Nova Launcher on a EuroSkank CM9 Kang. It is highly customizable.
What are you running and why?
Also feel free to post likes and dislikes on any Launcher so we can put alot of Info out there, maybe we'll help someone choose
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go launcher as it is ever so improving ..with new features and all...plus its free
running broodrom rc5

Zeam Launcher cause it's free and it consumes less memory.. plus it's fast!
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Nova Launcher is the best launcher out there for ICS! Hands down. Lots if customization options, and easy to use. Highly recommended!
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Apex cuz I say so
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Apex FTW, smoother than nova imo
but for me both have same customization capabilities
cheers

Is nova able to layer widgets on top of each other? I had to switch to Apex for that feature as I couldn't find that option.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1631195&highlight=launcher

Related

Whats your favorite launcher to replace TouchWiz?

I wanted to give TouchWiz a chance but I could only deal with it for about an hour. At first I replaced it with Holo Launcher since thats what I used on my SGS Vibrant but it was a bit buggy on the SGS3. I then installed Nova Launcher and its been pretty good.
Whats your favorite launcher to replace TouchWiz?
Apex Pro, no doubt!
Pebble Blue Samsung Galaxy S3 (T-Mobile Style)
Agreed apex pro
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Nova Prime hands down.
Hands down after testing all of them the lightest and most customizable is adwlauncher ex.
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Madblaster6 said:
Hands down after testing all of them the lightest and most customizable is adwlauncher ex.
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Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You're kidding right ?
Hmm just for fun this should have been a poll hehe.
Apex pro for me so far is the best. It's fast, minimal, but feature packed. I used a bunch of other ones but they either too bloated, development is dead, or I noticed my battery starting to suffer. Apex pro is owning hard.
Does using an alternate launcher actually avoid loading touch wiz in the background? Asking because i see TW uses about 70 mb of ram and i don't really want two launchers taking up memory in the background.
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Go Launcher Ex all the way, just as fast as Nova or Apex but with more features. I have tried all 3 and I noticed Nova is a bit smoother than Go Launcher but I dont think its worth it to give up the customization that Goi Launcher offers
Nova Prime!
Apex pro without a doubt
Gotta agree with some of the others. Nova.
Apex pro here
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Tried them all, Go Launcher Ex is the best one I have used, they also have a lot of other apps, like Go SMS, Go Calender widget, that are integrated very nicely.
Give them a try and go with what suits your needs best, I did and I always went back to Go Launcher Ex.
They all copy from each other, Apex, Go, and ADW seem to have the same level of customization options, plus or minus one or two here and there.
Apex pro ftw. My girlfriend uses Nova and they are pretty much the same.
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Go launcher
androidmonkey said:
I wanted to give TouchWiz a chance but I could only deal with it for about an hour. At first I replaced it with Holo Launcher since thats what I used on my SGS Vibrant but it was a bit buggy on the SGS3. I then installed Nova Launcher and its been pretty good.
Whats your favorite launcher to replace TouchWiz?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Apex pro, faster than the others. Never has f/c yet.
Threw APEX Pro on it soon as I got it.
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Nova......!
Go launcher ex is really nice and has a lot of cool features
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Best performing launchers?

I recently switched to Nova launcher and it seems like its overall smoother than Apex launcher which is what I've been using previously. What launchers have given you the best performance on ICS.
I'm also trying to figure out how to get other governors that would help with performance without killing my battery for AOKP Milestone 6.
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I like nova prime. But atom launcher is also a good favorite. Very light. I used atom on CNA and aokp and had great results
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Everything except go launcher ex is good.
All others have pros and cons. Go launcher feels like too much bloat. Dont know why.
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I have had good performance with apex, however I do like nova as well. Would put them as top 2, in no order.
In my experience, apex is far smoother than nova. Nova was very unresponsive for me.
I looove apex or stock launcher
Tappin' Typin'
I always use apex.. tried nova didn't like it
And go launcher is a big hell no
-TeaM VeNuM Like A Boss
Nova seems nice to me especially since I got it for 25 cents. Lol
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Another vote for apex, smooth and great on battery.
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I really don't get the Apex/Nova rave on our device. Sammy gives us the stock launcher, you just have to switch to it. I only use Nova because I got it when it was on sale, not worth the regular price in my opinion.
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kingsway8605 said:
I really don't get the Apex/Nova rave on our device. Sammy gives us the stock launcher, you just have to switch to it. I only use Nova because I got it when it was on sale, not worth the regular price in my opinion.
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Click to collapse
Apex just gives me a "Stock +" experience. I don't even use as many features as it has. Mainly just to use home button as app drawer(when on home screen), and have app/folder options in the scrollable dock.
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Best performance is stock launcher for me.
I have purchased and tried out both Nova and Apex Pro launchers. After using them both for a while I settled on Apex launcher. I am on a rooted stock jellybean firmware, Poland rollout. Both launchers are very similar in terms of overall design and behaviour but i chose Apex for the following reasons;
1.Fewer ui and app drawer redraws this is possibly because of the keep in memory feature which is not there in Nova. This might consume more memory but for me the resulting smoothness is worth it.
2. Unread email count, to put this into perspective understand I have three Gmail accounts set up on my phone. In Apex I get the total unread count across all 3 accounts whilst Nova gives me total unread for only the main account associated with my device.
The one thing i missed in Apex from Nova was the import homescreen feature as i had to set up my widgets all over again in Apex. That said i am sticking to Apex for now.
GoLaucher Ex is now unistalled from my S3 until further notice but it seems to still work reasonably well on my S2
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Other devices : Sammy GT-I9100, Huawei Ideos 7" tab.
Previous : HTC Desire Z
im using nova prime and liking it. came from apex pro which is very good
Wrong section much?
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apex, holo hd, and tsf shell
Nova Prime. The best so far. IMO
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Another vote for Apex here.
Mattix724 said:
Wrong section much?
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Click to collapse
Nobody likes a rent-a-mod sir.
+1 for Nova prime.
I always choose Apex, its been my favorite since ICS. However, on Slick_Rick's latest AOKP it redraws almost every time I return to the home screen.
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Launchers and themes

What does everyone use for launchers? Any one have a good minimalistic theme? I'm running xylon11
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Only "stock" launcher I use on GNex
I really really like nova. I know some have mixed opinions about it but it serves Me well. Also I just started making custom wallpapers for xylon . I go pretty minimal. One screen and folders with circle click widget and Bob click and nice wallpaper. That's about all I can say on that topic.
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I use Nova Launcher Prime. the customization level is very high and I like a lot the gesture function toghether with the ROM actions ..
Maybe the negative thing is the ram occupation.
I'm using silky smooth Xperia launcher. But usually ADW Ex. It is amazing. He just updated maybe 2 months ago. Very tablety.
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Which launcher do you use?

i know, i know, this has probably been asked a million times, but i'm directing this to S3 users here in our little corner of the world, please don't hate
i've been using the holo launcher hd pro now for some time and i truly love the way it works. its smooth, elegant, doesnt get in the way, and best off all, gives me an AOSP look and feel when running a non-AOSP rom. i also use the holo locker as well. i use this launcher on both my S3 and my Xoom tablet
it seems to me that the holo launcher doesnt get enough respect. i see many a custom rom that includes nova or apex, but not holo (or even adw or go launchers for that matter).
when i search for "launcher" on the play store the first five results are in order GO, ADW, Nova, Apex, and Launcher 7, with Nova Prime and Apex Pro 6th and 7th.
Holo is on the first page of results, but is second from the bottom. hardly respectable if you ask me. there are themes that show up higher in that search
anyway, so lets keep it civil and not bash on each others choice of launcher. i just want to get a feel for how popular these launchers are on the S3 or do you prefer the stock TouchWiz interface?
let your voice be heard and vote above!
Wrong section
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serio22 said:
Wrong section
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Click to collapse
why do you think that? launchers are apps.
My favorite one is the one that gets launched when i press the home button
I use nova prime because of the folders in the app drawer. Go launcher is too heavy.
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Apex is very light, smoth and dont use alot resource therefor batt last longer.
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I'm debating on nova, next, or atom launcher.. I'm using nova atm and i love it but i love the visual features of next and atom is pretty sleek too
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RedJack117 said:
I'm debating on nova, next, or atom launcher.. I'm using nova atm and i love it but i love the visual features of next and atom is pretty sleek too
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i tried Nova prime, alot of features but sometime is lagging for me, Next use too much power, Apex dont have alot of features like all the other once beside that very good
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HiT tHaNk If i BeEn HeLpFuL.
Ive become a huge fan of action launcher. Best new launcher I have used in a while.
jajaja ive tried them all..use to like golauncher but takes up to much ram.. nova lags to much when i add widgets on screen...next seems ok but you cant change icons on the ones that bring look awfull... atom is smooth but its not letting me add widgets only the one launcher brings...smart launcher is kinda boring...and action launchers is slow xD spb is to heavy to.... im using apex now... until i find another one to try out...lol
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Primo
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Nova prime is the best one I've found so far imo.
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I use the stock TouchWiz one, but when I root it I use LGUI3.0 It's so much better, and gives you alot more customization options than TouchWiz. I think TouchWiz is so bland...
I was surprised to see that the default launcher with CM10 doesn't have a back-up function. I switched back to ADW because I was familiar with it from CM7. I also missed the infinite scroll feature that's available in ADW (and some of the others).
Jose0726 said:
jajaja ive tried them all..use to like golauncher but takes up to much ram.. nova lags to much when i add widgets on screen...next seems ok but you cant change icons on the ones that bring look awfull... atom is smooth but its not letting me add widgets only the one launcher brings...smart launcher is kinda boring...and action launchers is slow xD spb is to heavy to.... im using apex now... until i find another one to try out...lol
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Click to collapse
have you tried holo launcher at all? i just did a test and it does use about 59mg of ram where as apex shows as cached and ready when you need it, so from that, it seems that apex is much lighter on resources, but i still really love holo, you should try it
zeekx4 said:
I was surprised to see that the default launcher with CM10 doesn't have a back-up function. I switched back to ADW because I was familiar with it from CM7. I also missed the infinite scroll feature that's available in ADW (and some of the others).
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Click to collapse
i should have added trebuchet to the list. it has a lot more than it used to
I used touchwiz for a while it was ok, then I tried atom launcher it was good and smooth except app drawer laggs little bit now using the latest sony home launcher from the xperia Z really smooth and packed whit good widgets..
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Moving to General, as I think that it will garner more votes/views/opinions as opposed to staying in the Themes/Apps section.
Touchwiz ... I purchased apex pro and nova prime and holo plus .. but I love touchwiz launcher
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Apex pro. Tis great
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Next launcher is the best....!!!!
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Go Launcher Vs Nova Launcher.

I'm trying to work out which home launcher is better.
I paid for nova launcher prime. Also got Go Launcher. Also looking for good themes and icon packs.
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JknRich said:
I'm trying to work out which home launcher is better.
I paid for nova launcher prime. Also got Go Launcher. Also looking for good themes and icon packs.
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Click to collapse
Go launcher sucks. I would stick with Nova. Go launcher is bloated slow and ugly lol. Just my opinion though.
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No contest, Go is made for crappy 2.3 devices
It should be Apex or Nova not Go.
Go Launcher's pure of crap.
OK I'll use nova. Just looking for some good themes and icons.
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I love go launcher ex. Sure when you first load it you have to dump all the widgets, but so what? Works awesome once it's set up. And it's free, along with hundreds of free themes.
NOVA > all period ! and the go launcher themes works with nova ( lest the ones i tried )
One more for Nova I think is the best launcher for our Nexus phones I use it first time on my Galaxy Nexus and stick with him until now.Go is slow and eat many rams.
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Adw ex
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Is TSF or the 3D shell one any good.
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davwman said:
Adw ex
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Click to collapse
That's oldschool!
JknRich said:
I'm trying to work out which home launcher is better.
I paid for nova launcher prime. Also got Go Launcher. Also looking for good themes and icon packs.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I prefer nova because it is lean and uncluttered. Go launcher is made for Gingerbread or something and annoys me with all those other Go apps they advertise for (Locker, keyboard, wallpapers, task manager, widgets etc.). For me a launcher should be built upon the AOSP one, otherwise it destroys the experience.
However, there is one big difference: Nova only supports icon themes, whereas Go can be themed entirely. (drawer tabs, dock separator etc) But you can achieve such theming level in Nova by installing themes for the Tmobile theme chooser which is integrated in every decent custom ROM. If you do that, not only nova, but the whole framework and many apps are themed too.
AW: Go Launcher Vs Nova Launcher.
I don't like the icon order in Nova, I have Nova and Apex , Apex is my favourite .
Nexus 4 Tapatalk
amus76 said:
That's oldschool!
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It was updated a couple of months ago and is very good now
I have bouth nova pro and Apex Launcher Pro and i think nova is a little bit faster, because when i wake up my device and scrolling throw the windows, i have some micro lag (Nexus 4).
Nova is by far my favorite, I haven't use go launcher since I had my Nexus S. For fast and an AOSP like experience I'd suggest nova.
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No love for action launcher
Wish he had a free version for people to check out. I like it pretty smooth
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I'm gonna have to say differently, I love Go Launcher, always been one of the best launchers on Android because it bring a unique and extreme customization to Android. Nova is a awesome launcher if you intend to run a pure android experience but with tons of customization. I have always gone back and forth from Nova and Go but since Go Launcher had an update to their UI last year I have been reporting a specific issue to them but they still have yet to fix this issue, so until they do I will not use it as my daily driver. I do have hopes that they will someday.
I find Nova less smooth than the stock Nexus launcher tbh
I tried them all and using Apex now. Never had any problems and its packed with features I use.

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