According to multiple reliable sources, we believe that Google plans to debut a brand-new launcher for Nexus devices some time in the near future, likely on its 2016 Nexus (if they are Nexuses) smartphones Marlin and Sailfish.
That unremovable date widget is an absolutely dreadful idea. Luckily though, this is Android, so you can replace it with whatever launcher you want.
The date widget is simply making the unremovable search bar a little less annoying. But sure, there are lots of perfectly capable replacement launchers for Android.
The new launcher behavior is reminiscent of BB10 and Jolla. Swipe up for all apps, swipe left for the hub (or Google Now in this case). These were my two favorite mobile environments and I typically set up Nova launcher to behave in this manner.
For some reason, I like the name Sailfish for a phone.
As for Blackberry and Jolla, when they die, Google will wash them out of the turret with a hose.
Those aren’t new on Android.
What is new, is that they seem to be adding more discover-ability for swipe actions. Which is nice. I’d like to see some implementation of that carried through out an operating system.
I’m not thrilled with the stock launcher. I find categorizing applications to be tedious. Also, I wish there were a mode better suited for kids.
Anyone willing to share their experience with alternative launchers?
Can you expand upon what you would like for kids? Curious how that should work.
Bill Shooter of Bul,
A common use case for parents is to give them the phone to play games, especially during very long trips.
I haven’t researched it at all, but ideally there would be a way to give them the phone as a “guest” without worrying about them messing things up. On the computer I’ve noticed my daughter managed to delete some files – this can be solved by creating a user account for them. On android, I’m not sure what the solution is.
Another problem I’ve noticed that a lot of kids games have banners that bring you outside of the app. Like suddenly they’re on youtube or in the playstore, ideally these would be disabled for kids/guests.
Amazon’s fire tablets (android!) have this feature. I’ve setup a 7″ kindle fire with a kids profile. I get to approve any apps or movies he has available, and he can’t access things like settings.
The only draw back is apps that have in app purchases. They don’t allow any in app purchases at all. I bought the full “Hungry Catapillar” for my son, but it won’t recognize the purchase in his profile.
Kids Corner in Windows Mobile used to work very well for this as well. You setup some apps, disable Wifi/Cellular and you are good to go. Ads in games were still annoying though. I am writing “used to work” because I hear it is going to be removed so you are only left with the far less useful and secure “guest mode”.
In reality the best way is simply to use an old phone for this, because phones are apparently “personal” devices that aren’t supposed to be shared. I would love for a phone that does have multiple accounts and that uses the fingerprintreader/irisscanner to unlock into the correct account
I couldn’t read the article with all those God damned animations every where.