Day 21 - ADW Launcher

First off I would like say thanks for coming back to read this as it has kind of been on hiatus (I think that's the right term), but now I'm back. I have found a few more features/apps/tips to blog about and so here we go! Also I realise technically its not Day 21 of living with my Galaxy Tab but because it looks neater I'm going to continue with the numbering. I think its actually more like day 61 but lets not worry about that.

As time has passed I have been getting more and more used to my Galaxy Tab to the point where its a little dull. Any good geek will tell you (perhaps even before this point) that its time to mix things up a little and start changing away from the supplied software. So I've not gone quite as far as rooting it but I have changed the launcher. 

So what is a launcher, well in normal PC "language" it would be called a desktop, every time you press the home button you are in fact loading the launcher application. So by changing this application you can have a different desktop or perhaps just more features from the stock Samsung one. The one I'm trying at the moment is called ADW Launcher EX and is designed for both phones and Honeycomb based tablets. Its not a free app, which is somewhat of a departure from what I normally do, but it is only £2.00.

ADW Launcher

So you may look at the above screenshot and think there isn't much difference and your right. The biggest obvious difference is the addition of the Mac like doc across the bottom of the screen. This I must admit I really like simply because you can fit all your icons of your most used apps in there and it looks really neat. One of the better features is that its so much faster than the stock launcher. Swiping between screens and in the app drawer too is instant. I never realised how slow the Samsung stock one was until now.

It is infinitely configurable as well, I spent nearly an hour trying to look and play with all the options. This maybe a little too fiddly for some people but it gives you every opportunity to get your home screen looking exactly as you want.

ADW Launcher Settings

 I must admit I didn't change many settings at all and used the preset option, which allows you to set it up like a Nexus phone or iPad or just in a fast configuration, which is the one I used. As I said before this may all be a little too much for some people spending ages creating their own perfect home screen which is why they might like another useful feature. You can download themes from the Android Market via the handy Themes section within the settings.

ADW Launcher Themes

If you do decide you want to create your own and spend time sorting it all out there is a useful backup option to store them all to an xml file so that should you accidentally change something then you are able to quickly restore your configuration. Hopefully something you won't need to often but a neat feature none the less. 

So far I quite like ADW Launcher and will be sticking with it for a while, the main reason for this is just the speed of it all, the difference is quite striking and I would recommend it if your looking to move away from a stock launcher.