When Android telephones first took off over a decade in the past, customized launchers had been all the trend. The concept of fully remodeling your cellphone’s appear and feel was an enormous draw for lovers—and even non-techies. At this time, nonetheless, launchers are virtually exceptional. They’ve largely fallen out of favor in favor of no matter your cellphone got here with, and albeit, I believe that’s for the higher.
Customized Android launchers was once a giant deal
Everybody liked them
It’s onerous to explain the hype for customized Android launchers you downloaded off the Play Retailer in the event you didn’t have an Android cellphone again then. Everybody from my mother to my highschool associates (myself included) complained endlessly concerning the terrible inventory TouchWiz Android pores and skin that Samsung used. Different Android manufacturers, like HTC, Motorola, and LG, weren’t a lot better both.
When you couldn’t take away the pores and skin altogether wanting rooting the cellphone and flashing a customized ROM, you could possibly at the least change the launcher to make the house display screen and app drawer cleaner, smoother, and, most significantly, extra customizable. That’s primarily how legendary app launchers like Nova Launcher and GO Launcher made their names.
Other than fully remodeling the format, these launchers added an unimaginable variety of options that the majority Android skins didn’t have on the time, like altering the app drawer format (vertical, horizontal, or tabbed), grid measurement (e.g. 4×4 to 5×5), adjusting app icons, labels, and sizes, hiding particular apps from the drawer, every kind of customized gestures and animations, and a lot extra.
That’s simply the tip of the iceberg, although; the true attraction launchers added had been the visible overhaul.
You possibly can make your cellphone look fully distinctive by altering your entire UI with a brand new shade scheme, icon packs, animated wallpapers, and extra. Two folks may have the very same cellphone and launcher put in, however it will be onerous to inform as a result of they had been utilizing fully totally different themes.
Regardless of the intensive built-in options and customization, these launchers had been typically smoother and fewer buggy than no matter customized pores and skin got here pre-installed on the cellphone. Now, I’m not even positive if this speaks to the standard of those launchers or simply how terrible the inventory expertise on some telephones really was.
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Default launchers lastly caught as much as what customized launchers used to supply
Every part is in-built now
Credit score: Bertel King / How-To Geek
Customized Android launchers provided a variety of customization again when few Android telephones had any significant flexibility of their default launchers.
Nonetheless, issues have modified dramatically over time, as producers like Samsung, Motorola, Xiaomi, and even Google with its Pixel line discovered what customers anticipate from their Android telephones. We wished extra customization, and over the previous few years, we acquired it in spades.
Essentially the most high-profile instance is Samsung’s One UI, which fully reworked how Samsung telephones appear and feel. The UI went from bloated, heavy, and laggy to wash, easy, and quick. It solely acquired higher over time, with extra options and customization choices added with every technology.
Many manufacturers, together with Samsung, now allow you to obtain customized themes that fully overhaul the system. Not like app launchers of the previous, these themes go effectively past the house display screen and app drawer and apply throughout your entire UI. You can too set up customized icon packs, and if you wish to make your Samsung really your personal, you need to use Theme Park to customise almost each element you need.
Even in the event you don’t obtain and set up something customized, the inventory Android expertise and the little options varied producers add on prime already present a wholesome quantity of customization that the majority customers realistically gained’t transcend.
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6.3-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2x
If you need an Android cellphone with a customizable system, the Samsung Galaxy S26 is a incredible choose. It additionally occurs to be top-of-the-line flagship telephones available on the market.
Customized launchers really feel redundant now
They not often add something new
Credit score: Ismar Hrnjicevic / How-To Geek
Whereas some customized launchers may nonetheless technically present an excellent larger degree of customization than the typical OEM Android pores and skin, most of those options can now be dismissed as gimmicks. Even when my cellphone doesn’t assist customized dice or flip-style animations when swiping between dwelling display screen pages, do I actually care?
The identical goes for different power-user options that launchers add, similar to customized gestures like swiping up in your digicam app to open the gallery or take a photograph, customization of particular person app icons, overkill 12×12 grids for fine-tuning app and widget placement, customized docks accessible by swiping from the sting of the display screen, ultra-fine folder group, and so forth.
It’s simple to see how these superior options are overkill and may really feel extra like complicated bloat than a real profit for the typical person. If a function is genuinely helpful, there’s probability the producer has already added it—or an in depth equal.
Plus, the way in which we use our telephones is closely app-based, so we solely spend a fraction of our time on the house display screen anyway.
A launcher provides friction extra typically than it provides worth
Credit score: Lucas Gouveia/Justin Duino/How-To Geek
One difficulty that has plagued Android launchers from day one is that they have an inclination to crash or trigger random points. Whereas issues have gotten higher as telephones turned extra highly effective and builders turned extra expert at squashing bugs, it has by no means fully disappeared.
Keep in mind, a launcher has to work throughout a variety of telephones and on prime of every kind of person interfaces, and with every new system replace, there’s all the time a threat that one thing will break or cease working as meant.
Getting again to the house display screen or opening the app drawer in an unconventional means, like by way of the “Current Apps” display screen, can typically trigger you to open the cellphone’s inventory launcher as an alternative of your customized one. Unsurprisingly, you will see complaints within the opinions part of just about each launcher obtainable within the Play Retailer.
Fairly frankly, that form of conduct is sufficient to maintain most individuals away from customized launchers. Having to re-open your launcher once you need your cellphone to “simply work” is not price any form of particular function that the launcher guarantees.
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Launchers aren’t the very best expertise anymore—simply probably the most enjoyable
Customization remains to be what makes Android cool
Whereas the tide has undoubtedly shifted in favor of OEM Android UIs over the previous few years, and also you achieve few sensible benefits from putting in a customized launcher, some customers nonetheless decide to take action. The launchers that had been as soon as standard have largely fallen from grace, however a number of newer names have taken the highlight.
Microsoft Launcher has over 50 million downloads with a formidable 4.7-star ranking, Niagara Launcher overhauls your cellphone into an ultra-minimalist list-based UI, and Good Launcher is only a plain, strong different. So, in the event you’re feeling nostalgic about customized launchers after studying this piece, possibly it’s price giving one in every of these a strive—regardless of typical knowledge suggesting it’s best to avoid them.
