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

It’s almost time for the kids to go out and get pounds upon pounds of candy for just dressing up in a silly/cute costume and walking from door to door. No apples please, grandma! Koveleski  and Tha Phlash looks to be in the spirit already and has just released two themes that go perfectly for the month of October. Tha Jack-o and Tha Pumpkin work great with ADW EX and even LauncherPro Plus, so we’ve decided to spread the Halloween cheer through a little giveaway.

Update: We got our 5 winners! Congrats you guys, and thanks to everyone for entering!

Instructions to enter:

There will be 5 winners. Just comment down below which one of the two themes you would like to win (Tha Jack-o or the Tha Pumpkin) and what your favorite type of candy is. Make sure to leave your comment with a valid email so we can email you and let you know that you won. Good luck!

If you want to go ahead and support Mr. Koveleski, then check out the themes in the Market. He has done some great work in the past and is really gifted. Anyone have special plans for this years Halloween? I myself plan on dressing up my dog as Chuck Norris. We’ll see how that goes.

Cheers Dave and Tha Phlash!

Contest: Time To Get Into The Halloween Spirit, Win A Pro Theme From Koveleski is a post from: Droid Life

Mr. AnderWebs has released an update to his extremely popular ADW EX home replacement app today, and the crowds of fans are happy. The changelog is somewhat minor, but it still leaves other home replacements in the dust as they play catch up. If you have been using ADW on your Honeycomb tablet, then this update is definitely right up your alley. 

Market Link

What’s New:

1. Fix incompatibility with Android 3.2
2. In Android 3.x, the top Actionbar displays a customizable shirtcut to the left.
3. New dockbar design thanks to @josuas79
4. The dockbar can now be set as “primary”
5. Both docks are now always horizontally placed at the bottom on big screen devices (10″ tablets)
6. Drag and drop items inside dockbar folders.
7. New “Quick Folder Popup” implementation for user folders and groups launcher actions.
8. A bunch of other small tweaks and fixes.

Note: Anders has just tweeted that the “Hide Labels” feature has been broken with this update though, and he will issue a fix tomorrow.

Everyone still using either ADW EX, or LauncherPro? We have definitely seen a huge increase of people using GO Launcher as well these past couple of months. Let’s all be grateful that we have the option to choose.

Cheers Dave Kover!

ADW EX Receives Update, Android 3.2 Support and Other Minor Tweaks is a post from: Droid Life

Upgraded to Gingerbread on the DROIDX and love that new app drawer, but can’t part ways with LauncherPro?  We have a solution that’s built right into LP that will get you the best of both worlds.  All you have to do is…

1.  Long press on your app drawer.
2.  Choose Change shortcut>App groups>All apps.
3.  After that, pick an icon and your life with both the GingerBlur drawer and LP are  complete.

All good now?  Any other tips for new GingerBlur that we should let everyone know about?

Cheers Shawn!

Tip: Use LauncherPro and the New Blur App Drawer Together on Your DROIDX 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

The man behind LauncherPro is now diving head first into the music arena with his alpha release of an app with a “Windows 7ish” feel and look to it. So far it’s very bare bones, but it plays music, shuffles, etc. We can definitely expect to see a lot more features as always from Fede. Maybe even see some music player skins? That would be neat. Since it’s still in development, now would be a great time to throw out feature ideas. What are some things you would like to see in a music player app? Let’s hear it.

Click on the download link and tell us what you think.

Fede’s Music App

Cheers Fede!

Federico Carnales Releases Alpha Music Application 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

The beta version for LauncherPro with skinning support was released at the end of the last week, so many of you have already had a chance to enjoy some of the early released skins.  It’s time to check your My Apps page in the Market though, because the official version just went live.  Gotta stay up-to-date, right?  I should point out that other than this new skinning support, Fede also reduced the memory usage of LP in hopes of cutting out those random force closes.

Download Link

LauncherPro Update with Skinning Support Hits Market is a post from: Droid Life

Our buddy signals23 who has been pumping out LauncherPro Plus themes for months now, is already using the newly released LP skinning engine to port over his entire collection.   And actually, he has most of them up in the market for you to download – some free and some $.99.  It sounds (and looks) like he’s about half way done, but the plan is to have them all there in the very near future.

Download them all from the signals23 Anroid Market page.

For those of you new to “skinning,” here are a few tips.  You will need to have LauncherPro Plus, which now has an unlocker in the market.  From there, you download skins of your choice which can be found at the signals23 link above.  After downloading, navigate to Preferences>LP Widget Settings and then tap on the widget of choice.  You will then see an option to “Select Skin” which gives you a drop down of the skins you have installed.  Choose one, back out to your home screen and add that widget.

*Note – Each time you change skins, you’ll have to remove and re-add the affected widget.

Signals23 Ports LauncherPro Plus Themes Collection Over as Skins is a post from: Droid Life

Our boy Fede released a new skinning engine for LauncherPro today that will allow some of our favorite themers to attack widgets and make them beautiful without requiring you to install a whole new version of the app.  The hope is to launch the full version in the market Monday (or so), but themers can get to work now so that we can enjoy some fabulous skins ahead of time.

I should also point out that this will allow you to set different skins for each of your LP widgets, so you are not just stuck with one particular theme.  Nice, right? +1 Fede.

Download:  LauncherPro_WidgetSkinningBeta.apk

Here are the dirty details of this new engine:

• (Almost) All of the graphics you see on the widgets will be skinnable. That includes header background, the shadow below the header, the widget body background, the footer background, refresh icon, buttons (for example, the Timeline/Mentions/DM buttons on the Twitter widget), etc.
• Most backgrounds should be 9-patch images
• Most clickable images, like buttons and the footer (refresh bar) should have two states; normal and pressed. When the user presses the button/image, it will change to the pressed graphic.
• You’ll be able to change the color of any text elements on the widgets.
• Changing text sizes might not make it into the first SDK, but will definitely come in future updates.
• More fine-tuning options like changing element positions and dimensions will also come in future updates. This first release should provide enough customization to create some cool skins.

All of the instructions for skinning can be found at this thread.

And here is a sample skin that someone already created.

Cheers everyone!

LauncherPro Releases Skinning Engine, Beta Version of App Available Now is a post from: Droid Life

signals23 has already updated almost all of his LauncherPro Plus widget themes to the newest version of LP (0.8.4.1) which includes the Gmail widget.  If you were looking to keep your phone’s overall theme intact, but didn’t want to downgrade to a stock LauncherPro, you are now good to go.  I chose the Blurps Blue themed LP in the screenshots above since it matches up well with the new blue Blur on Gingerbread for the DROIDX.  You can download that version here.

Full set of custom apks can be found at this XDA thread.

Custom LauncherPro Plus Widgets Updated with Gmail Widget 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

LauncherPro (Plus) finally received its Gmail widget today along with a couple of new homescreen transitions, and some other fixes.  Been a while since we’ve had an update, right?  No word on the full re-write, but this should hold you over for a while…

New Gmail widget for Plus users!

New “Flip” and “Rotate 2″ homescreen transition effects. The old “Flip” transition is now called “Flip 2″.

Facebook login is now done through the official Facebook app (where available).

Updated the Twitter widget code to fix some issues.

Download Link

LauncherPro Update Brings Gmail Widget, New Screen Transitions and Fixes is a post from: Droid Life

Our man signals23 over at XDA has been busy updating all of the LauncherPro Plus themes that have now become so famous.  And actually, he’s released a whole set of new themes that we weren’t aware of and wanted to make sure you all checked them out.  He’s calling them Metro, Clouds and BLURPS and are seriously works of LP art.  You’ll find multiple colors that are all based off of the latest version of LauncherPro and work incredibly well with a variety of themes.  Show signals23 some love.

METRO:  Download

CLOUDS:  Download

BLURPS:  Blue | Red | Grey | Green

Instructions:

1.  Backup your current LP settings.  Preferences>Backup homescreens & settings.
2.  Uninstall LauncherPro.
3.  Download a themed version from above.
4.  When it finishes, tap on the download and click “Install.”
5.  When installation is complete, restore your previous settings.  Preferences>Restore backup.
6.  Enjoy!

The rest of the themes can be found over at XDA.

Cheers Picolas!

Download New LauncherPro Themes: BLURPS, Clouds, and Metro 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