10 Best Android Launchers
by Shelly singh
10 Best Android Launchers
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Tired of staring at the same old icons on your Android home screen? Try installing a custom Android launcher. A good launcher can give your phone a total makeover, from changing the look and feel with different icons and themes, to adding new functionality such as smart folders and assistive search. Here are the 10 most feature-packed, innovative and customizable Android launchers on the market today.
Nova Launcher (Free)
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Fast, sleek and highly customizable, Nova Launcher is among the best modern Android launcher apps. Nova balances extensive appearance and utility customizations with a minimal performance impact, letting you set your home screen just right without slowing down performance. There are a lot of options to work through, from color themes to icon packs, scrollable docks to app drawer customizations, folder settings and infinite scrolling. Whether you're looking to optimize your home screen or just want to spice things up, Nova Launcher is one of the best launchers out there.
Apex Launcher
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Apex Launcher lives up to its name and is another excellent Android launcher with a good balance of features and performance. Core features include the ability to customize the homescreen grid size, with up to nine screens, as well as a scrollable dock with up to five pages. Infinite scrolling, transition animations, numerous folder styles and multiple app drawer styles add even more customizability. The paid version unlocks even more options, such as more drawer options, additional gestures and theme support.
Action Launcher 3 (Free)
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Action Launcher 3 updates its launcher to give the app a Lollipop look while offering its own usability improvements. A slide-out app drawer provides users with quick access to an app library and widgets, and special gestures such as "covers" and "shutters" allow for speedy access. Action Launcher automatically picks out dominant colors in your wallpaper and adjusts the app drawer, folder backgrounds and search box to match.
Arrow Launcher
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Microsoft's just jumped into the Android launcher game with Arrow, which keeps all the info and apps you need in compact, context-sensitive pages. Apps are sorted according to frequency of use, while swipes to the left and to the right allow you to quickly access contacts, a widgets page, recent app activity, as well as a handy notes and reminders page. System settings can be quickly reached by swiping up from the bottom of the screen.
Lightning Launcher ($4.99)
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Lightning Launcher's plethora of features and settings might not be as user-friendly as some of the other launchers we've featured, but they allow a vast degree of customization if you're willing to dig around and learn. Users can strip down their homescreens to extreme minimalism, or go the other way entirely with custom icon grid layouts, animations, gestures, an unlimited expandable desktop, a floating desktop and custom JavaScript addons.
EverythingMe Beta (Free)
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Rather than try to build a fancier home screen, EverythingMe tries to build a smarter one. The dynamic Prediction Bar provides a changing set of app shortcuts and bookmarks depending on the place and time of day. For example, EverythingMe might display your news reader apps in the morning, your note-taking and cloud storage apps during work hours, and shortcuts to recipe books or movie and media players in the evening.
Yahoo Aviate Launcher (Free)
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Yahoo's Aviate Launcher is more all-encompassing than some of the competition. Aviate begins with a simplified home screen and an auto-categorized app drawer. As you go through the day, however, Aviate adjusts what's on the display to provide the info you need right now. Check the weather, traffic and news in the morning, get commuting and driving directions when on the go from work, or automatically pull up your music apps and artist details when you plug in your headphones.
APUS Launcher (Free)
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APUS Launcher is a highly customizable launcher that comes with a ton of wallpapers, themes, animations, as well as system tools to freshen up your phone's UI. APUS automatically categorizes your apps into smart folders, gesture controls allow you to quickly bring up notifications or search, and a Free Swipe tab allows quick access to phone and system settings as well as frequently used apps. The launcher also comes with a variety of extras, such as a performance booster, a battery utility as well as app discovery tools.
Smart Launcher 3 (Free)
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Smart Launcher's been one of our long time favorites for its streamlined design that cuts your phone home screen down into a focused smart dial of your most frequently used apps. It's an extremely clean and minimalist interface that works particularly well on smartphones with smaller screens. In addition to the smart dial, the launcher includes an intelligent app drawer that automatically categorizes your app into useful groups, with separate drawers for games, communication tools, Internet, multimedia apps, etc. The latest iteration of Smart Launcher adds flat surface detection, and other improvements, while retaining the slick interface.
Buzz Launcher (Free)
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Buzz Launcher comes packed with features for designing your own personalized Android interface. It not only makes it easy to create home screens, but also to share them online or browse through the work of other users for your own particular favorites. Customization junkies can tweak icons, wallpapers, folders, drawers and home screen options, while less seasoned users just looking for a change of interface can just download whatever takes their fancy.
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