Click here to view the embedded video.

Remember ADW Launcher? It’s back! According to the “What’s New” section in its app listing, everything has been redone. If you check out the video, you’ll see a lot of Holo theme, along with settings and features that match up to today’s hottest launcher, like Nova and Apex. I have to admit that I had forgotten about this launcher, but now that it’s back, I’m ready to give it another shot.

Play Link

Cheers Grady!

ADW Launcher Returns From the Dead, Revamps “Almost Everything” is a post from: Droid Life

I feel like it has been ages since we last asked everyone what their current launcher of choice was. Is everyone still using one of the old standards like ADW and LauncherPro or have you gravitated towards some of the more frequently updated replacements like GO Launcher? Is there a chance that some of you have adopted the current crop of stock launchers that Moto, Sammie and HTC are tossing out? I feel like there is some sort of new home replacement that is dying to be found that we just haven’t heard of yet. If you answer “Other”, please let us know in the comments which launcher you are using.

Tuesday Poll: Favorite Android Launcher Today Is? is a post from: Droid Life

Saturday’s App Of The Day was Timeriffic. Hope everyone had a chance to take a look at it.

Today, I am writing up an app called Simple Text. This app is for users who are looking for a change up from standard icons or for those of us who like minimalistic styles (Kellex). To use the app you do have to have LauncherPro,  ADW, or Go Launcher. (In the pictures above I am using LauncherPro Plus.) The app is about as straightforward as they come. There are two words you can edit. One is on top (see “SIMPLE” in pic) and the other is on bottom (see “TEXT” in pic). Just type in any word you want for top and bottom then customize size, scale, position, color and font. Save the icon and apply it to the launcher icon of your choice.

Here are his exact instruction per market:

How to use with ADW Launcher or ADW Launcher EX:
1. Long-press an app icon
2. Select “Edit”
3. Tap on the app icon
4. Select “ADWTheme IconPacks”
5. Choose Simple Text
6. Create your icon
7. Press Menu, then “Save Icon”

How to use with other Launchers ( LauncherPro, GO Launcher… ):
1] Run Simple Text in your application list
2] Create your icon
3] Press Menu, then “Save Icon”
4] Use your launchers specific change icon option and browse to your images ( stored in /sdcard/Simple Text )

Market Link

*Today’s free paid Amazon App Store app is: Aces Bubble Popper.

App Of The Day: Simple Text is a post from: Droid Life

Federico Carnales has been seriously pumping the features out for LauncherPro these days. We go from skinning all the widgets,  to now having full themes for icons in the App Drawer. And even better, all the ADW themes (yes ADW) that are available on the Market, also work with this version of LauncherPro, making life very easy!

Along with the update is true infinite scrolling of homescreens, ability to hide label backgrounds, and much more. As always, we’ll keep you up to date on more LauncherPro updates and other need to knows about customizing your favorite device. What are some more features that you think are lacking? Anything you would like to see next?

Download new BETA: LauncherPro Version 0.8.6 BETA

Source: Twitter

Cheers everyone who sent this in!

Download: New LauncherPro BETA Includes App Drawer Icon Skinning and ADW Theme Support is a post from: Droid Life

Seems like so long ago that we received an update to ADW EX, but I think you’ll be very pleased after seeing the goodies that Ander has packed into this latest verison.

First off, he completely re-did the app drawers to improve memory usage and to make them more responsive.  He has definitely succeeded as the fluidity of the drawers was instantly noticeable.  He brought over “true” homescreen looping from ADW Launcher 2, reconfigured the theme management screen, added 3 new screen transitions, some cool zooming effects, drawer swiping between catalogs, and probably most importantly, started getting the app ready for Honeycomb.

Market Link

Full changelog at the ADW site.

Cheers Manny!

ADW EX Updated with Infinite Looping, New Screen Transitions, and Experimental Honeycomb Support is a post from: Droid Life

A new ADW Launcher could be on the horizon or at least a major update to the current EX or regular versions that will include a set of new and extremely impressive features that you’ll most definitely enjoy.  I had the pleasure of spending a few minutes with a really early version of “ADW2″ today and am already craving more of this hot sauce.  So what’s included?  Hit the break to see.  

Infinite looping homescreen:

Click here to view the embedded video.

New widget options on long-press:

When you are on a home screen and long press on a widget, you now see more options than before including shortcuts to the Application info and Market pages for the app.  You can also quickly set up custom shortcuts using ADW’s menus rather than the standard Android process.

New app drawer functions on long press:

These new app drawer functions are probably the most impressive.  You can now long press on apps from within the drawer to see a variety of options, giving you more control over the look and feel.  You can also add folders directly in, plus a bunch of other shortcuts.  After playing with the new app drawer for 30 seconds, you see how amazing these new tweaks will be once this thing gets fine-tuned and is ready for release.

App is not available from me, but by doing a search on Twitter for “ADW2″ I’m sure you will get some clues as to where you can find it.

Cheers @davekover and Tato!

App Preview: ADW Launcher 2 is a post from: Droid Life

A friend of DL’s just sent over a batch of docks that fit perfectly with the new blue Blur that we’re seeing from the leaked Gingerbread that’s come out this week.  If you are like me and fully embracing this new color scheme, then these docks will only add to the experience.  They’ll work with both ADW EX or LauncherPro, so no one should feel left out.  Feel free to download the whole set of docks which are zipped below, or grab the few individual files that I’ve posted separately.

Download:  Gingerblur_Docks.zip

If you need instructions on using custom docks:  LauncherPro | ADW EX

Huge Cheers to Nick!

Download: 12 Blue Docks for LauncherPro or ADW to Match the New Blur is a post from: Droid Life

In my 11 months here at Droid Life, it’s become apparent that most of our community use one of two different home replacement tools: LauncherPro or ADW Launcher. It’s gotten to the point that these tools are deemed essential to Android users because of the additions they bring to an otherwise boring Android home screen. That one row of buttons adds a lot of functionality and saves a lot of space; something that’s precious on a stock 4×4 grid.

Naturally, when a new home replacement comes along, it’s easy to dismiss it. How could it even come close to the “big two?” However, I urge you to read on: GO Launcher is no half-assed effort.  

I was originally going to write this article about GO Launcher, which comes to us from the aptly-named GO Development team. However, in the time it took to plan things, a new version of the launcher came out, titled GO Launcher EX. The EX version comes with some performance upgrades, theme support and some changes to how the app was structured: I’ll be taking a look at each in my review.

Hilarious mistranslations aside...

From the get-go, GO Launcher seems similar to LauncherPro and ADW; it adds the familiar dock to the bottom of your Android home screen that is both customizable and scrollable. You can have up to 3 rows of docks, which you move through by gesture-flicking left or right. I’ve turned this off, as I prefer a dock that stays constant.

Each dock icon can be customized with themed icons, or default ones. Furthermore, each button can be assigned a gesture command, as well. This is activated by swiping in any direction with your finger starting on the button. It’s a bit unintuitive at first, but it works. I can’t imagine it working in a moving situation, though, as sometimes my hands aren’t the most steady things in the world.

Also developed by the team is a separate app for notifying users of how many missed calls/texts/Gmail they’ve missed, right in the dock. The reason for the separation is that some people didn’t appreciate an app that looked into their call/text history. This function works fine, but sadly it doesn’t seem to co-operate with Handcent SMS; it works with the stock messaging app just fine.

However, when you open the app drawer, something is glaringly different; the background is solid, the waterfall animations of other launchers is not present, and there are two new tabs along the top: “Recent” and “Running”. These two tabs do exactly what you’d think: they list apps you’ve recently opened, and apps that are running, respectively. The latter acts as a task killer/applications manager hybrid.

Clicking on apps in this screen opens a pop-up asking you to choose “Close”, “Lock”, “Goto” or “Info”; while the first two’s functions are evident (killing the task or keeping it from closing, respectively), the latter two are interesting additions. “Goto” opens the app, while “Info” opens its page in your phone’s Settings > Applications menu. I find this extremely useful for when I want to move apps from my SD card and back, or just want to check up on things.

This functionality is on top of the ability to long-press on apps in the normal app drawer and uninstall them directly from there. After some haptic feedback, little red “X” hovers over every uninstallable app, and clicking on it once takes you directly to the uninstall page. As someone who used “Quick Uninstall” before it merged with Atrackdog, I cannot love this enough. Simple and no-frills. Apps can be sorted by name or installation date – newest first or last. This is a nice feature, but between sortings it defaults back to “newest last”; every time I install a new app, I need to re-sort.

Upgliding on any home screen brings you into a robust editing mode: you can customize order and number of home screens simply by dragging and dropping, or clicking on buttons. It also shows a live preview of screens, so when you’re thinking about order, you don’t need to keep a note of which is which.

Apps are selected in a unique way with GO: instead of dragging icons around, you have the option of long-pressing on one to bring up a menu. One can delete icons without having to drag them to a garbage bin (though the option still exists.) Icons can be renamed, which is a big plus: I don’t like apps without proper punctuation (I’m looking at you, “reddit is fun.”)

Apps are brought from drawer to home screen by long-pressing on an icon and then dragging into a “move to screen” area at the bottom. After that, you can drag it to one of the screen previews from before, so you know where it’ll fit in.

However, this brings me to my one problem with GO Launcher. When your screens are full, that app will not drop. This makes sense, except when there’s a folder I want to throw my app in. Because trying to move an app from screen to screen brings up that darned preview window, I can’t even throw it on an empty home spot somewhere else and then drag it sideways. Instead, I must make sure that there’s a blank spot to drag icons from the drawer to, then from there, I can put it in the folder I want.

You would be surprised how quickly this gets annoying.

The phone sports a nice themeing system, which actually got me to use themes on my launcher. Each theme (installed separately through the market) comes with a wallpaper, icon and dock set. Some, like the “original” theme I’m using in my screenshots, alter app icons significantly, while the “default” theme leaves them alone. I’m going to dock some points from GO because I’d prefer they use the Beautiful Widgets “in-app” system of downloading skins instead of the market method: this tends to clutter search results quite fast. What’s important is that the theming is not difficult to use and that it doesn’t disrupt the normal operation of the launcher.

That’s GO’s strength as a whole, actually: it just works. I haven’t had it crash in the approximate month I’ve used it, nor have I had any major tech-related screw-ups. I’ve never had to kill its process to resolve a freeze, or had the screens lock up while switching back and forth.

I honestly can’t say the same for when I’ve used ADW or LauncherPro.

That could be a result of a number of different factors: I’ve used LauncherPro, Helix and ADW on different combinations of unrooted and rooted, along with updated ROMs. Any of those things could have triggered my problems. However, what I know now is that minus that one annoying issue with the folders, GO’s earned its spot on my phone.

Download:

Link to APK

—
Matt Demers is a Toronto writer who doesn’t understand why everyone needs like 10 home screens; he’s whittled his down to one. If you’ve liked what you’ve read, follow him on Twitter.

In Depth: GO Launcher EX is a post from: Droid Life

An update for ADW EX is available and brings a feature that many of you have been waiting for, support for custom docks.  Some additional tweaks were also added that allow even more customization, but the docks are the star of the show this time.  In fact, a small catalog of docks was included which you can see pictured above.  It’s hard to think that this home replacement could get any better, but I’m sure it will.

To access the custom docks:  Menu>ADW Settings>UI Settings>Main Dock>Dock Background

Full changelog below.  

Recent changes:
-Reorderable main menu can disable elements and reorder by drag and drop(ADWSettings/General behavior/System settings)
-Added transparency support for the 4D drawer (yes, it’s choppier, I told you)
-Support for custom images for dock and hidden dockbar
-Added a small catalog of dock pictures
-Option to change app drawer icons text color
-Menu/Lock now locks app drawer too
-Fixed old style previews when statusbar was hidden.
-Fixed fancy backgrounds transparency issues
-Fixes more “ForceCloses”

Download Link

ADW EX Updated, Now Supports Custom Docks is a post from: Droid Life

There are some other players in the launcher game these days, but when it all comes down to it, ADW Launcher and LauncherPro are still my first two choices.  And  guess what?  ADW just went “pro” with an EX version that in my opinion, brings it right up there with LP.  In this new EX, you’ll find a ton of enhancements, features and even some stuff that most of you have never seen before.  It will cost you $3.43, but you won’t be disappointed.  

Here is a list of new features:

• 5 different app drawer styles/behaviors:  3D Nexus One like applications drawer, 2 different plain vertical applications drawers styles, 2 different Iphone-like horizontal applications drawers
• Different desktop transitions (8 at the moment): new animations while navigating through your desktop screens. Try them all, they’re crazy!
• New Icons configurations/look and feel: Tweak your desktop icons, change its sizes, add coloured backgrounds, change font size, color, etc!
• New fast presets mode: Quickly change the whole desktop configuration by 1 click!
• Editable desktop icons for applications, shortcuts and folders!
• Lots of code improvements

And a video of the new stuff in action:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Download Link

More info can be found here.

Cheers matrix2004!

ADW Launcher EX Released with Window Animations, New Drawers, Tons of Enhancements is a post from: Droid Life

Here we are again. Back to show you how to make your phone look like something that isn’t even out yet. Last week we gave you everything that was available:  Icons, themes for ROMs, and everything in between. Our good friend Koveleski, who just can’t seem to stop releasing good material for the community, has added to the fun.

He just recently launched this theme for ADW and has already become top honored on AppBrain. Isn’t that sweet? So after the jump we’ll provide the QR code and Market link for you to enjoy as well if you bat for team ADW.  

Here’s a nice quote from Dave about the theme -

“This is a very low impact theme. I’m essentially just trying to capture the look of the launcher.”

Well there you have it. From the man himself. Placed right below this line is a QR code. Scan it with a Barcode Scanner, or click the “Market Link” from your phones browser and be shot off like a magical star directly to the application on the Market. Enjoy everyone!

Market Link

-Tim-o-tato

Koveleski has been supplying us so much lately. Please donate so he can get Egg Nog.
Also, for everyone who’s going to ask here’s the wallpaper! Have a great Wednesday!

Gingerbread Theme for ADW Launcher by Koveleski is a post from: Droid Life

We here at Droid-Life are completely madly in love with making our phones look exactly how we want them to look. Isn’t that why we love Android to begin with? Choosing which Launcher is a big part of that. There are only a few big names that everyone is familiar with, but LauncherPro, and ADW stand on top. LauncherPro features seemingly endless customization features. But there are some misconceptions about ADW’s abilities as well. So I give you…WP7 for ADW Launcher and another nice surprise.

Read

There’s a lot of misconceptions about why ADW could not have the same look. While they do go about their docks differently, it doesn’t mean that its not possible. So with a bit elbow grease, a borrowed dock image and a can of monster, I set out to bring ADW users the same kind of love that LP was shown. Of course, I couldn’t just stop with the dock. I’ve also themed the included search widget, added a custom font in and also threw in some of the wallpapers that come with win 7 that I thought were suited for this. Enjoy the “trash can”!

-Koveleski

So Koveleski has graced us with an APK that will turn your ADW launcher into a beautiful wonderland.  You will just install this with ADW already preinstalled.  Then open up the themes feature for ADW, select the OMGWP7ONADW and have some fun!

Step 1.Download ADW Theme APK Here.
Step 2. Open the ADW settings and select the “OMGWP7ONADW” theme and enjoy!

In addition we have some other GREAT NEWS – Koveleski will be having a weekly segment on setting up ADB and creating your very own ADW themes! How awesome is that? So check back soon and keep your ears and eyes open.

Cheers!
Tim-o-tato and Koveleski

ADW Can Play Too – Special Guest Koveleski of DarkEdge is a post from: Droid Life

It’s been a while since we’ve talked about ADW Launcher and I guess that’s because it’s been a while since this bad boy was updated.  ADW, which many consider to be the only competitor to LauncherPro is now on V1.2.0 and includes some nice new features like dynamic widget resizing, custom launcher actions, and support for unlimited app catalogs.  (Full change log can be found here.)  

Download Link

AnderWeb has also released an app to sit alongside this new ADW called ADWNotifier which allows your device to retrieve GMAIL, SMS and Missed Calls notifications.  If that isn’t enough detail, check out this post.

ADW Launcher Updated to V1.2.0, ADW Notifier Also Released is a post from: Droid Life

On Tuesday we were bragging to rooted users about the latest release of the ADW Launcher and how it had a Froyo feel to it plus some of the options featured on the LauncherPro.  Well guess what non-roots?  The developer made it available in the Android Market to everyone.  Yay!

No need for an additional full writeup on the dozens of options it has; you can find that here.

Free!

Download…

Download Link

ADW Launcher Hits Android Market is a post from: Droid Life

The ADW Launcher received another update yesterday to bring it closer to the quality of the LauncherPro and its animated app drawer.  Which is better?  LauncherPro still appears to be faster, but if you want a Froyo look-a-like, then ADW is a great choice.

*Rooted users only.

Instructions for installation…

*Note 1* – I was unable to manually install this onto JRummy’s ROM, but he includes it as an option in his customizer.  It may be 2 builds behind, but still resembles Froyo.

1.  Download the file compatible with your system:

• Cyanogen ROMS: ADWLauncher-alternate.zip
• Other ROMS:  ADWLauncher.zip

2.  Open ROM Manager and choose “Reboot into recovery.”
3.  Select “install zip from sdcard.”
4.  Select “choose zip from sdcard.”
5.  Scroll down and select “ADW.Launcher….zip.”
6.  After it finishes installing, hit the power button to return one menu.
7.  Reboot your phone.
8.  Choose the “Home” launcher when prompted.
9.  Done!

Changelog: ADW Things

Cheers @absanchito!

ADW Launcher Update Brings Some Froyo is a post from: Droid Life