Uninstalled within seconds. I’m trialling Hyperion launcher now, which seems pretty crisp.

    • Tanoh@lemmy.worldEnglish
      48·
      15 天前

      Lawn Chair looks ok, but unless they fix this issue I will not switch.

      https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair/issues/2683

      Basically you can’t set the main “home page”, ie where you end up on home press. I like to have it set up so the home is in the middle and then you can swipe left to go to another screen(s), and swipe right to go to other screen(s).

      Forcing the home screen to be the first means you can only swipe right, and have to go through many useless screens to get to the one you want.

      Doubt they will fix it either, as it has been open since 2022. Without knowing their stack it sounds like a really simple fix, just storw which is the main screen. Normally it is [1], 2, 3, 4. But let the user choose to put it as [3] for example if they want.

      • sm1dger@lemmy.worldEnglish
        16·
        14 天前

        I’ve switched, but this really is my one major gripe. Good to see others see it as a priority too, but if it’s been a conversation for 4 years then I’m not optimistic

      • Fmstrat@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8·
        14 天前

        Without knowing their stack it sounds like a really simple fix, just storw which is the main screen.

        Soooo… if it’s simple… contribute then?

        I’ve learned an app’s stack for far more mundane things. If you want others to build something you want, it helps to build things other’s want. Sounds like there would be a lot of interest if you took this on.

      • Whostosay@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1423·
        14 天前

        and have to go through many useless screens to get to the one you want.

        Two things.

        Clean your shit up and prioritize. Everything I could ever dream of is on one screen.

        Second, it’s foss. Contribute.

        • tomiant@piefed.socialEnglish
          202·
          14 天前

          Or, hear me out, solve this trivial problem by reintroducing what has been a basic feature of launchers forever.

          • Whostosay@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            215·
            14 天前

            Has it though? I can’t say I’ve ever seen it, and I go out of my way to look at settings for everything

            • Whostosay@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
              112·
              14 天前

              It makes sense to have it, but what is one thumb movement really? After once, the benefit goes away. And even then, it’s literally a thumb movement, and it’s to access something that you use so little, that you’ve put out of the way. You’re saving like a swipe a year at that point. I’d deprioritize the fuck out of this

        • tuoret@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          151·
          14 天前

          Classic “the product/UX doesn’t need fixing, you’re just using it wrong” mentality. Not exactly how you win users on your side.

          Second, it’s foss. Contribute.

          Agree on this point though

        • Tanoh@lemmy.worldEnglish
          8·
          14 天前

          I like having home on 3.

          Only a calendar widget on 2 (one swipe left), so you get a quick glance of upcoming events. Then two swipes left are various games. One swipe right are various overflow apps from the main screen.

          People use software differently, just because you don’t agree doesn’t mean it is wrong.

    • Cevilia (they/she/…)@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      4·
      14 天前

      I just tried Lawn Chair. Started building my home screen by adding two games to a folder. It dropped the second game right on my home page as well as adding it to a folder. Then, when I tried to remove the duplicate, it crashed.

      I’m guessing this is not at all typical and this is a “me” problem, otherwise nobody would ever recommend it. :P

    • 0ops@piefed.zipEnglish
      63·
      15 天前

      This might be an unpopular opinion, but I’ve liked lawnchair better than Nova since it was in a pre-release state years ago. I admit I haven’t used either in at least 5 years, probably longer, so this opinion might be grossly out of date, but when I last tried it I was 90% convinced that it was just the KitKat aosp launcher with a material skin. It just felt clunky. Lawnchair actually felt native to newer android versions while still having all the customizations I needed.

      Again, I haven’t used either launcher in forever, so take this whole thing with an agricultural block of salt

    • criticon@lemmy.caEnglish
      3·
      15 天前

      Uff I installed it last week but I haven’t had the time to customize it and add all my shortcuts so I’m still using Nova. I definitely need to change it tomorrow

  • Chozo@fedia.io
    421·
    15 天前

    I have to imagine that anybody savvy enough to make the decision to install a third-party launcher is also savvy enough to immediately uninstall that shit.

  • barnaclebutt@lemmy.worldEnglish
    36·
    14 天前

    It pops up just like a gravestone. Bye bye Nova launcher. I guess apps don’t die, they rot from enshitification.

  • texture@lemmy.worldEnglish
    25·
    14 天前

    nova was good many years ago. iirc they got bought by an advertising company, and that was the day i deleted it.

    • LumpyPancakes@piefed.socialEnglish
      7·
      14 天前

      My vote still for total launcher.

      This post has just reminded me to change from Microsoft keyboard to FUTO. I wasn’t worried about the data harvesting, but it started redirecting my searches to Bing by hijacking the search button on the keyboard.

      I’m 30% slower with FUTO though at this stage. Not sure if it’s my swype style being slightly out of calibration or my device is not fast enough to keep up. (Moto g84).

      Will see how I get on.

      • lohky@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        14 天前

        I’ve been using FUTO for a few months now and the Swype and autocorrect are fucking horrible. Still using it because fuck Google I guess, but man I wish it were better.

        • LumpyPancakes@piefed.socialEnglish
          1·
          14 天前

          I agree it isn’t great. But I don’t want to be in the abusive relationship with Microsoft. Yes I could probably just turn off the deep search option but they’ll just do something else.

          Maybe there’s a better option than FUTO, it’s just the first thing I saw as a recommended alternative.

          It seems if I swype carefully it’s reasonably accurate but I have to be patient.

          • lohky@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            13 天前

            Same. I used a different android device the other day that still had gboard on it and the swype felt so much better. Still won’t go back.

      • filcuk@lemmy.zipEnglish
        3·
        14 天前

        Total is truly amazing, especially for a foldable, no match. Few small long standing bugs though, maybe I should take the initiative to report those

      • Trent@lemmy.mlEnglish
        2·
        14 天前

        Total Launcher is where I landed.

        Also, Heliboard is a pretty decent keyboard.

      • CheesyFox@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        11·
        14 天前

        i switched from gboard to ThumbKey. Took some time to get used to, but now the usual qwerty/swipe keyboards seem inferrior to me. Like, swipe is cool and all, but only as long as the keyboard knows the word you’re looking for. As soon as you need to type out anything manually, it always turns into hell

  • Noblesavage@lemmy.worldEnglish
    20·
    14 天前

    I switched over to Lawnchair leaving Nova Launcher just last week. All the Lemmy articles about the new owners forced my hand. Perfect timing!

    • Clanket@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      14 天前

      Moved in the last couple of days to Lawnchair. Very happy with it. You can set the icon size very small to fit everything on the HomeScreen.

  • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    19·
    14 天前

    Ive been using the FOSS launcher Kvaesitso for about a year now due to annoyances with Nova. It’s a different setup entirely, but I always preferred the app drawer over having scattered icons on the homescreen so its worked great for me. Anyone interested in trying something new should check it out. :)

    • Damage@feddit.itEnglish
      7·
      14 天前

      That’s what I’ve been using, but I still prefer Nova’s ability to create folders, I could open most apps I needed in an instant by sliding to the correct screen, opening the folder and tapping the app. With Kvaesitso even with categories and such it’s much more of a hassle, the fastest way is typing the first letters of the name, not the same.

      • linuxgator@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
        3·
        14 天前

        My biggest gripe with other similar launchers that can also create folders is that they always have an icon with 4 miniature icons on the cover. I wish that another one would give you the option of showing them as stacked instead. It just looks much less cluttered to me that way. I’m just glad I purchased the premium version before Nova got sold off, no ads (so far anyway).

      • iamthetot@piefed.caEnglish
        3·
        14 天前

        I made pseudo folders by applying tags to apps I wanted to group, gave that tag an emoji, added a few app boxes to the widget page, and added the tags I wanted quick access to into those app boxes. Result looks like this.

      • LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        1·
        14 天前

        I disabled the automatic search on mine. So opening the app drawer doesnt automatically prompt searching.

        I just open the app drawer by sliding up from the bottom and tap the app I want to open. I set the favorites section with everything I need most often. And the 5 apps on the dock home screen dock for my absolute most frequent apps. Most apps that aren’t in either of those sections are ones I rarely open anyway.

        • Damage@feddit.itEnglish
          1·
          14 天前

          My often used apps are numerous, and there are a few that are not often used but by their nature need to be opened quickly when necessary (such as the camera or qr scanner)… Plus I like to have a monthly calendar and clock on my home screen, those take up quite some space.

  • nieminen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    17·
    14 天前

    I used Nova for as long as it’s been a thing. Paid for pro. Abandoned it immediately after they released the news a few weeks ago about the tracking and ads.

    I switched to Octopi Launcher. It’s really good, and in active development. Author listens to his users and is always adding fun new features.

  • greybeard@feddit.onlineEnglish
    15·
    14 天前

    I was watching a youtube video of an engineer student showing off his project. He had a stopwatch app up to show how quickly something was done, and there was a banner ad at the bottom of it. Like, it’s a damn stopwatch, who thought “I worked hard on this, and deserve to make some money!”. Also, how normalized to ads was that person that they didn’t think twice about letting that ad roll in their video.

  • THB@piefed.socialEnglish
    14·
    15 天前

    For anyone looking for more customization, Octopi Launcher has been the closest replacement for me. I’ve tried Lawnchair, Niagara, et al.

  • onceandfuturealice@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    14 天前

    I switched to Niagara a few years ago and can never go back. The alphabetized list of apps and slick scroll are super addictive.

    Here’s what it looks like: (ignore the use of Papyrus, I just use it because it drives my friends nuts)

  • varjen@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    14 天前

    I switched to lawnchair. It’s ok but feels a bit “We have Nova Launcher at home”.

    • El care ñá@feddit.clEnglish
      3·
      14 天前

      I also made that switch. Lawnchair works great but some of their settings are clunky. Managing app folders is kind of bothersome. You can’t do it right in the app drawer, you have to dive into Lawnchair’s settings.

      • varjen@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        14 天前

        And when you have moved everything into folders you can’t sort the folders. Also can’t get rid of the stupid horizontal padding on widgets.

    • nile_istic@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      13 天前

      If they ever get around to adding drawer tabs, I’ll happily make the swap. Until then Kvaesisto is a decent alternative (unless you’re the sort who likes having lots of icons on home screen; nothing wrong with that, of course, but Kvaesisto doesn’t really have a way to do it).

  • iamthetot@piefed.caEnglish
    13·
    14 天前

    Used Nova for almost a decade. Switched a few weeks ago when the news broke of them adding ad tracking.

    I like Kvaesitso so far.

    • KneeTitts@lemmy.worldEnglish
      61·
      14 天前

      No easy way to put icons on home the screen… wow why are these developers obsessed with getting rid of the icons, I need those damned things.

      Finally settled on FOOS Launcher on Fdroid, does everything I need, but still buggy as hell.

      • iamthetot@piefed.caEnglish
        2·
        14 天前

        I mean, that was a feature not a bug for me. After using Nova for so long I actually liked the way Kvaesitso shook it up, almost felt like a whole new phone. I honestly already did minimum icons on home using Nova anyway, grouping as much as possible into minimum folders, smallest size.

        Of course, it won’t be for everyone. If you really like icons on home, I also tried Lawnchair and Octopi and they were pretty solid.