[heading4tomorrow]

I missed this somewhere, slide to reveal HUB? How is that going to work?

Twitter had a sneak peek, someone also shared it here. If I can find it...

[darwincruz20]

I have a friend who is a typical Samsung fanboy and he installed the BlackBerry Launcher just for the widget.

I'm new to Android, what do you expect from a launcher other than the themes it provide? I haven't seen anything else that is different yet and I'm a power user. Do teach me perhaps I'm not maximising my use of my new Samsung S7 Edge.

It's a great Launcher with Spark Notifications. Though, you will miss a part of the Samsung experience trading it for Blackberry Experience.

[trsbbs]

Nova blows it away.
BlackBerry needs to step up their game in the Android apps if they are serious about making a go of this.
Very slow development.

[anon(8063781)]

Nova blows it away.
BlackBerry needs to step up their game in the Android apps if they are serious about making a go of this.
Very slow development.

Nova blows pretty much everything away. Light and very customizable. If you check out PivotCE.com, a friend and I used it to create a webOS style interface on Android.

Was playing with the Pixel at Best Buy today, and was surprised to see that it has the swipe up app drawer, like BlackBerry OS7. If I bought a DTEK 70/Mercury, I'd be wanting that feature I loved it on OS7.

[heading4tomorrow]

Nova blows pretty much everything away. Light and very customizable. If you check out PivotCE.com, a friend and I used it to create a webOS style interface on Android.

Was playing with the Pixel at Best Buy today, and was surprised to see that it has the swipe up app drawer, like BlackBerry OS7. If I bought a DTEK 70/Mercury, I'd be wanting that feature I loved it on OS7.

We need to be able to customize the android menu back recent buttons and add one more like app drawer or notification bar etc.

[filanto]

Apex Launcher is set to swipe up or down for the Hub for me

[heading4tomorrow]

Apex Launcher is set to swipe up or down for the Hub for me

Are you guys paying for these launchers? It would be awesome if someone could do a review of these as BB user.

[filanto]

I used their free version but missed having the notification count on the app icons which I now have with the paid Apex Launcher

[anon(8063781)]

Are you guys paying for these launchers? It would be awesome if someone could do a review of these as BB user.

I am running them on an LG G2 with the Dirty Unicorns (Marshmallow) ROM. So my BlackBerry experience is all courtesy of Cobalt, and probably not representative of what it would be like to run the launchers and apps on a DTEK or Priv device.

Oh, and I've paid for Nova Launcher (well worth it) and for a BlackBerry apps subscription, though I prefer using Cobalt's installer because you get a little more.

Nova, like Apex, also has iOS-style notification counts on the app icons if you want them.

Here's a video I made a while back, showing the results of mimicking webOS using Nova Launcher. It's extremely customizable:

Basically the same thing, using a Nexus 4, with an HP Pre3 as a comparison:

I used Nova to create an iOS-style interface for my wife, so I'll take a quick video sometime and post that here too.

[heading4tomorrow]

I am running them on an LG G2 with the Dirty Unicorns (Marshmallow) ROM. So my BlackBerry experience is all courtesy of Cobalt, and probably not representative of what it would be like to run the launchers and apps on a DTEK or Priv device.

Oh, and I've paid for Nova Launcher (well worth it) and for a BlackBerry apps subscription, though I prefer using Cobalt's installer because you get a little more.

Nova, like Apex, also has iOS-style notification counts on the app icons if you want them.

Here's a video I made a while back, showing the results of mimicking webOS using Nova Launcher. It's extremely customizable:

Basically the same thing, using a Nexus 4, with an HP Pre3 as a comparison:

I used Nova to create an iOS-style interface for my wife, so I'll take a quick video sometime and post that here too.

I didn't know Nova replaces the 3 android buttons with a single one, or is that another app running on top?

[anon(8063781)]

I didn't know Nova replaces the 3 android buttons with a single one, or is that another app running on top?

No that's a special feature -- the 'Fling' navigation bar -- that's built into the Dirty Unicorns ROM. You don't have to use it in Dirty Unicorns. It's an option.

Usually you would have the regular three buttons.

[filanto]

Dashed my dream. I can't root

[anon(8063781)]

Dashed my dream. I can't root

Yeah. That and the locked bootloader are the things that get in the way of me buying any BlackBerry Android device. I swore I would never buy another locked down Android after getting a Sony tablet that only got updates for a year.

[heading4tomorrow]

So all of this is irrelevant since we can't root.

[filanto]

So all of this is irrelevant since we can't root.

Let's throw marshmallows at him for tormenting us

[anon(8063781)]

So all of this is irrelevant since we can't root.

No. Not at all. You can still use Nova Launcher -- or any other launcher -- without rooting. So you can change your UI substantially.

[filanto]

Let's still cover him in marshmallows

[anon(8063781)]

marshmallows!!!

irrelevant!!!

Nova Launcher Prime is on sale for $0.99 right now. Thought you might be interested.

[heading4tomorrow]

Nova Launcher Prime is on sale for $0.99 right now. Thought you might be interested.

I checked the features, there really isn't all that much to improve on BB Launcher.
If there is anything specific that you guys find so much useful, please share.

[anon(8063781)]

I checked the features, there really isn't all that much to improve on BB Launcher.
If there is anything specific that you guys find so much useful, please share.

Every aspect of the launcher can be customized: the desktop, dock, app drawer (including tabs in the app drawer), icons (you can also get themed icon sets), and notification bar; it has built in swipe gestures and programmable swipe gestures on icons; they just added the pixel-style swipe up dock; and you can add iOS-style notification count badges to the app icons on the desktop.

You can also save your themes. So you can customize the desktop one way, save it, customize again, save that, and then switch back and forth, etc.

Oh, and it's fast. Really fast. The BlackBerry launcher stutters in the app drawer on my Nexus 4, but Nova Launcher never does. That's probably not an issue with newer hardware, but if you're running the Cobalt apps or the Play Store apps on older hardware, Nova Launcher is lighter on system resources.

That's my $0.02.