Ask any geek why Android is great and more often than not the answer will include the word open. One of Android’s biggest purported benefits is it’s openness, which we’re told leads to more innovation and greater customisability.
Unfortunately, I’d argue that in practice it’s also a big weakness. Many a phone has been ruined by manufacturers (and even Networks) using this openness to mutilate Vanilla Android in a futile attempt to distinguish their phones from others. With the possible exception of HTC’s Sense I think it’s safe to say that this always results in a poorer experience for users.
Which brings me to LauncherPro. In my opinion LauncherPro is the standout example of why Android’s openess is so great. For those of you who don’t already know, LauncherPro is a replacement for the standard Android launcher i.e. it replaces the normal desktop where you place shortcuts and widgets and access apps from.
So far so normal, but LauncherPro offers a wealth of functionality and customisability that can make using your phone easier, faster and just more enjoyable.
Dock
The default LauncherPro dock
The LauncherPro dock at the bottom of the screen differs from the default Android dock by offering four shortcuts to the usual two. Depending on your preference you can even have up to three docks which you can swipe between to give a total of 15 shortcuts. You aren’t just limited to applications either, just as with the desktop you can set shortcuts to things like contacts, bookmarks, gmail labels, music playlists etc.
These 15 shortcuts can be doubled to 30 through the use of swiping gestures. For example, tapping on your Phone icon could open the dialler while swiping up from it could automatically start a phone call to your significant other. It’s an extremely flexible system which provides quick access to the features and functions most important to you.
The swiping gestures can also be used to initiate popups which provide further information or shortcuts. There are currently popups for missed calls, unread texts, bookmarks and recent apps.
The bookmarks popup
The recent apps popup
Homescreens
LauncherPro allows you to have anywhere between 1 and 7 homescreens and select which one you prefer to be the default. It also supports looping so that swiping forward from the last screen goes back to the first. You can even get a HTC Leap like overview of all your screens at once to enable fast switching between screens.
Drop to Uninstall
Drop to uninstall
Uninstalling apps normally involves either hunting through the applications menu or accessing the Market page for the app and doing it from there. LauncherPro offers a far easier and quicker method to uninstall unwanted apps. Similar to deleting items from your desktop, you simply drag an app to the bottom of the screen where you hold it for a second or two until the drop to uninstall dialogue appears. Job done!
Widgets
LauncherPro Plus (the paid version) also comes with some high quality widgets for Calendar, Bookmarks, Messages, Contacts, Twitter and Facebook. I personally find the Twitter and Facebook widgets to be far more useful and attractive than those that come with the official apps.
The calendar widget
The bookmarks widget
The Twitter widget
Another great feature of LauncherPro Plus is the ability to resize widgets in order to fit more onto each screen.
The same Twitter widget resized in
Summary
I can’t overstate how much I love LauncherPro, the developer Federico Canales is a genius. Google should be hiring him and making it the default launcher for Android. The Plus version is even better but even the standard version is miles ahead of the competition. There are many more features and settings that I haven’t even touched upon and new features are continually added.
If I ever buy a non nexus device I will probably install something like this or mobileshell day one. Only problem is the permissions list is huge. Gives a developer far more access than I am comfortable with. However I do understand that is the nature of the beast with such a full skin.
Runadumb from Trusted Reviews?
And engadget, cvg and all over the interwebs 😉
Hello, how do you customise the color of the bottom shortcuts ? Thank you.
What do you mean exactly? They’re just the default icons for the apps. I haven’t customised them in any way.
Go launcher is just 100 times better.
Yeah, 100 times better than poo. Launcher Pro razzes all over “go figure”, and if you disagree it’s because you don’t understand the capabilities of Launcher Pro.
HTC Sense and Samsung TouchWiz are excellent but the likes of Motolora MotoBlur are awful and make Launcher Pro essential. I’m looking at a Motolora Droid Pro and will be skinning it with this.
Launcher Pro Plus at clever widgets that mimic HTC’s Friendstream (Facebook/Twitter aggregation).
Personally I’m really not a fan of TouchWiz but each to their own. Rosie is a decent enough launcher but it just lacks customisation for me. Regardless, whatever your preference at least you have a choice!
I’ve only seen TouchWiz in screenshots and it looks well thought out (unlike MotoBlur). Any idea why Sense’s code name is Rosie?
What do you mean Sense lacks customisation? Sure you cannot customise it as much as Launch Pro but in honesty I found Launcher Pro had customisation overkill. I really don’t need to alter it “that much”.
No idea why the Sense launcher is called Rosie,
I meant that the Rosie dock is fixed with no opportunity to adjust anything. The massive phone button just seems like a waste of screen space to me. Also don’t get the need for the + button when a long press anywhere does the same job.
For information about the full article ” Customise Your Android Device ” http://devicegadget.com/android/customise-android-device/1274/