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I had ordered this without ever even giving touchwiz a thought. Figured the phone would show up, I would play with it about 5 minutes, install new launcher, never look at touch wiz again. After I ordered it I downloaded the user manual and did some reading and it appears that there is some interesting and useful work here that without having the phone I think I like. Watching videos to see if I could see some of the stuff in action seemed to me to confirm that there is some good stuff there.
My question is how are you liking touchwiz? Not the phone, the phone with touchwiz. I Have encountered an older version and was left heavily underwhelmed. Please be specific, I like this, I hate that, and give a reason. If its just because that works fine but have a reason.
Remember guys this is mostly about opinion and little about fact. Leave folks be with theirs and vice versa.
edit.... Also please add in your predilections toward flashing roms, or not, as it were. An opinion from a daily flasher is much different than one from someone who never flashes and runs the stock rom.
I thought I'd hate it but I'm actually really liking it! Some features I love:
- The lockscreen is great and you get little tabs you can slide when you get a text or missed call.
- You can reject a call with a text message (So handy)
- Resizable widgets
- Customiseable dock
- Hold down 'Menu' for search in apps
- Quick settings in the notification tray
- Movable homescreens
- Customisable app tray
and more Besides you could always replace it with another launcher and I'm sure custom ROMs are on the way.
I changed it within seconds to launcher pro. However the drawer in launcher pro isnt smooth at all, im actually thinking of changing back.
rocketpaul said:
I changed it within seconds to launcher pro. However the drawer in launcher pro isnt smooth at all, im actually thinking of changing back.
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Try Go Launcher EX
It is faster than Launcher Pro
I have a lot of time flashing roms and all that fun stuff so I have an idea about the possibilities going that route. Going to edit the op in regards to people adding their experience and preferences as far as flashing roms and such go. Thanks for your input. As a question Im on a custom rom now and the widets are all resizable. Are you talking about the touchwiz widgets then?
Another question would be can you access some or all of the touchwiz widgets from another launcher or do you give them up?
krabman said:
Another question would be can you access some or all of the touchwiz widgets from another launcher or do you give them up?
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If you go use a third party launcher, you usually lose access to manufacturer widgets, since they work in a slightly different way from plain stock ones...
But if you go Launcher Pro Plus (it's a couple of dollars for the plus version) you get more "custom" widgets like that in return I guess it just depends what look you are going for.
So you have the handset and can confirm they are toast? Figured they would be but I haven't done touchwiz yet.
krabman said:
So you have the handset and can confirm they are toast? Figured they would be but I haven't done touchwiz yet.
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Nope, hence why I say "usually". I've been in this business for a while, but not got the SGS II yet.
I have to admit that I like Touchwiz. On SGS, I dont have a SGS2 yet. In my opinion, Samsung Glass lockscreen is a way better than the Android stock lockscreen.
At the moment I'm in love with Zeam laucher but I always come back to Touchwiz from time to time. Launcher Pro and ADW have always left me cold.
Did more reading, I see that you can change the fonts system wide. Does this carry over to a new launcher or do you lose that? Pretty nifty feature.
In my personal opinion, touchwiz 3 was dire. But after using my Galaxy S II for a few days touchwiz 4 has come a long way. I'm sticking with Touchwiz for now
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App
I've been playing with the demo models at the office solidly for the past 2 days, and as a Sense users for the past 2 years, I really don't like Touchwiz even in it's newest incarnation.
Probably more down to being used to how everything works in Sense though, I don't like change
Touchwiz 4 is a huge improvement over 3 in my opinion. Using it on both my SGS and SGS2 now. The new calendar widgets on the SGS2 are awesome as well Touchwiz 4 can also put folders in the applications menu now
Semi-regular flasher (ooer) - would generally flash a new rom every couple of months. Been with Android since the G1 so have a pretty good idea of what's possible.
Things you KEEP going to another launcher:
Lockscreen
Dialler (reject call with text etc)
Holding down Menu to search
Settings toggles in the notification bar
You can resize widgets with LauncherPro Plus
Things you might LOSE
Movable homescreens (most launchers do this, but not with the motion sensing twist action like touchwiz)
Customisable app tray (again, most launchers do this)
Resizable widgets (possible with LauncherPro Plus)
Customisable dock (most launchers do this)
Overall, I don't miss the touchwiz launcher, but I like some of the other features. Looks like the Samsung widgets are standard and work in other launchers too - just added Mini Paper, Ap Mobile, and Yahoo! Finance, and they seem fine.
krabman - I've changed my system font to Helvetica S (Settings -> Display -> Screen Display -> Font) and in general it looks great! Carries over to most apps too. The only downside is that it's slightly wider, so you get some buttons wrapping For example, the password "Remember / Not Now" dialog has one, I forget which . . .
Overall, ditch the launcher (I like LauncherPro, smooth for me) but enjoy the other aspects
TW4 is not as bad as many are saying. its still not nearly as good as SENSE 2.x. and I wont even attempt to compare it to the new 3.0 version. I sure hope someone port it.
darkalchemist said:
Touchwiz 4 is a huge improvement over 3 in my opinion. Using it on both my SGS and SGS2 now. The new calendar widgets on the SGS2 are awesome as well Touchwiz 4 can also put folders in the applications menu now
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Same here, playing with both the SGS and SGS2 and yes it is an improvement for sure, but I am still not liking the iphonish looks.
DJGibbon said:
Things you KEEP going to another launcher:
Lockscreen
Dialler (reject call with text etc)
Holding down Menu to search
Settings toggles in the notification bar
You can resize widgets with LauncherPro Plus
Things you might LOSE
Movable homescreens (most launchers do this, but not with the motion sensing twist action like touchwiz)
Customisable app tray (again, most launchers do this)
Resizable widgets (possible with LauncherPro Plus)
Customisable dock (most launchers do this)
Overall, I don't miss the touchwiz launcher, but I like some of the other features. Looks like the Samsung widgets are standard and work in other launchers too - just added Mini Paper, Ap Mobile, and Yahoo! Finance, and they seem fine.
Overall, ditch the launcher (I like LauncherPro, smooth for me) but enjoy the other aspects
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Click to collapse
You pretty much mentioned what I was about to! Using launcherpro plus with widgetsoid and pure calendar widget. I have to say that launcherpro work a bit smoother on the original SGS for be, but with the upcomming update that should be fixed.
Overall, combining the best of what I had on my SGS before, with the new functions from touchwiz 4!
A little background... I'm running the perma root method that shows version 9.9.9 and 1.4.0 and have access to play market etc. I also have the nice ICS bar buttons. I downloaded go launcher ex today and it runs fast, looks good, etc. My problem is that it is sized wrong! The fonts are huge or small depending and the bar at the bottom often sinks down into where the notification bar is. It's annoying and I believe it's because of the dpi or something that is stock on the nook. Is there anything I can do to size this right so that the fonts and sizes are correct on the nook tablet? Again, I'm not running cm7 or 9, just stock rooted.
From what I remember when I was running rooted 1.40 months ago, Go Launcher didn't play nice. There is a stable version though, something like 2.67, I am going off memory, you may want to double check. I had to freeze Go launcher so as not to get any updates. Any version after that was a little wonky. You may want to try out CM7 or CM9, Go Launcher works really well with both.
Jayrod1980 said:
A little background... I'm running the perma root method that shows version 9.9.9 and 1.4.0 and have access to play market etc. I also have the nice ICS bar buttons. I downloaded go launcher ex today and it runs fast, looks good, etc. My problem is that it is sized wrong! The fonts are huge or small depending and the bar at the bottom often sinks down into where the notification bar is. It's annoying and I believe it's because of the dpi or something that is stock on the nook. Is there anything I can do to size this right so that the fonts and sizes are correct on the nook tablet? Again, I'm not running cm7 or 9, just stock rooted.
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Click to collapse
I'm running 3.01 from Amazon, sideloaded on NT stock tablet 1.4, which should behave the same as your rooted version without the root access. (I don't run Google Play because it wouldn't ever install correctly and I have an SD card from which I run CM7 which does have the Play Store.) I have adjusted all icon and icon label and font sizes, icon grid spacing, etc. to sizes that look just fine. Go Launcher has many customization features under the preferences item on the menu.
I was running go launcher on 4.1.0 rooted and it was fine. I even changed the rows and columns to get more on the home screen. When I restored to go back to stock over the weekend go launcher updated to the latest and still worked well.
I just upgraded my SIII to KitKat 4.4.2 via CM11 nightlies. Loving the KitKat and this non-bloated ROM. I was a Nova Launcher user. But I try to use stock functionality when possible. From what I read, there are (and appear to be) MAJOR improvements with the launcher in KitKat 4.4. CM11 comes with two launchers it looks like 'Launcher' and 'Launcher3' I'm guessing Launcher is the stock KitKat launcher and Launcher3 is an alternative the CM11 developers through in? The problem I'm having is trying to determine the difference/advantage of one over the other. Is Nova Launcher still superior to either or are the differences no longer that significant?
Merry Christmas!
I always come back to Nova. I tried the stock Google launcher, and also gave epic launcher a try, but Nova is just too good.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk
i only use nova launcher.
i tried kitkat stock launcher and many other launchers but nothing beats it.
lately i try Themer, but still little buggy.
Randomly playing with alternatives, Nova always does the trick for me.
Nova is the best but give stock launcher a try.
I guess the question become - do you prefer Nova primarily because you're not on KitKat yet? If you are on 4.3 or earlier, Nova would be a no brainer. But seems I could save myself some setup time just by restore my Nova settings. Does KitKat backup your launcher config to your Google account.
I'm on KitKat and see no sense in downgrading to Launcher3.
Rosa Elefant said:
I'm on KitKat and see no sense in downgrading to Launcher3.
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Which begs the question, I wonder why the guys at Cyanogenmod included it in a KitKat build?
Because it's free? I wish the CM guys would add folders in the app drawer though.
Just wondering what you guys use for the launcher that comes with a phone or Nova etc, Please share! Does custom launchers can save you battery?
Sent from my D6503 using XDA Free mobile app
I use Nova Launcher, just because I like it [emoji4]. Stock launcher is excellent too I think but I don't see any negative effect on my battery with Nova. If there is it's soon little that I don't care.
The stock launcher is ok but I have always preferred Nova launcher so much that I bought the prime version, I also have Apex launcher Pro as well but find Nova smoother & quicker.
Using Nova now. Runs a bit smoother then stock
Stock
Google Now launcher. It's been available in the play store since earlier this week and Z2 is supported.
Nova on everything.
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Xparent BlueTapatalk 2
I will use nova if stock widgets qorking on nova
Nova launcher
Wysłane z mojego D6503 przy użyciu Tapatalka
smart launcher just because its easy to organize apps
Nova launcher. The default one is fine too and better in some ways, but nova works the best for me.
Smart launcher, few shortcut on the desktop and a clock. Do you really need something else?
Sicksky for me, running CM. Minimal, fast, light.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2404089
I like the app drawer on stock, but have been using themer. I haven't looked into Nova too much, recent switch after having 4 iphones. It's odd since you'd think I'd want everything on my homescreen after years with iOS but suddenly I'm all weird about how my app drawer looks.
Google Now launcher. Not interested in bloat and unnecessary, performance-and-battery-sapping gloss.
What is the actual advantage in running a custom launcher? I keep hearing the term banded about but I've never changed my launcher, not even when I was running CM on my old Galaxy S3, I just left it with whatever happened to be there.
Lagamorph said:
What is the actual advantage in running a custom launcher? I keep hearing the term banded about but I've never changed my launcher, not even when I was running CM on my old Galaxy S3, I just left it with whatever happened to be there.
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Click to collapse
More customisation and snappier experience are usually the main reasons. Some launcher have additional functions like organising your apps for you and etc.
I used to be a huge Sony stock launcher fan but then I tried nova and never looked back
Might have to give a custom launcher a try now I'm rooted then and see what all the fuss is about.
Lagamorph said:
What is the actual advantage in running a custom launcher? I keep hearing the term banded about but I've never changed my launcher, not even when I was running CM on my old Galaxy S3, I just left it with whatever happened to be there.
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Click to collapse
The biggest advantage for me is the possibility to add more rows/columns in the homescreen and app drawer, having only 4 columns look ugly and outdated. Being able to download custom icon packs is a huge deal too.
In playing with the G4 over the past few weeks, I've discovered some interesting things about launcher performance, so I thought I would share.
After using Google Now Launcher for several days, I began to notice that it was sometimes dropping frames and stuttering a bit much for my liking when swiping between screens. I switched back to the stock LG Home launcher and amazingly, scrolling was almost perfectly smooth with hardly any dropped frames.
Curious as to why this was, I began testing various launchers... Nova, Action Launcher, Apex Launcher, L Launcher, an AOSP launcher3 build from KitKat, etc. Finally, I noticed a pattern. Launchers based on the KitKat AOSP launcher source all ran very smoothly, while launchers based on the Lollipop AOSP launcher source all dropped frames too often when scrolling around the home screens and app drawers.
So from this, we can deduce two things:
1) The stock LG Home launcher is based on KitKat or earlier AOSP launcher source code. No surprise there.... just look at the page indicator dots, the app drawer background, and the three dot menu style in the app drawer. They all have KitKat styling.
2) LG optimized the G4 to run KitKat based launchers more smoothly since that's what their own launcher is.
So what can we do about it? Well, use an old version of your favorite launcher, of course. Action Launcher 2 is still available in the Play Store and has its own listing. I went with an old version of Nova (Classic v3.3 from http://novalauncher.com) and find it performs more smoothly than the newly released Nova v4. And not to fear, Nova v3.3 can still be configured to look and act like a Lollipop based launcher by changing a few settings. See my screenshots of Nova v3.3 below to see for yourself.
Hope all of you who are driven crazy by the slightest stutters find this information helpful. Let me know about your experiences.
Thanks for this. Will give it a try.
I was surviving with the stock launcher but went crazy after installing the tempered glass protector. After removing the glass all of my swipes or scrolls were being registered as taps.
Sent from my LG-H815
I too have been trying out the top 10 most know launchers in the playstore and have seen that issue as well compared to the stock launcher. What makes me go back to the stock launcher is two things. Health widget for step counter, and the smart notice widget.
wadamean said:
I too have been trying out the top 10 most know launchers in the playstore and have seen that issue as well compared to the stock launcher. What makes me go back to the stock launcher is two things. Health widget for step counter, and the smart notice widget.
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I know me too. How nice will be to add those into nova.
I'll be honest, I am running the latest Nova launcher and I haven't noticed any dropped frames or hiccups whatsoever. Everything seems buttery smooth.
Ken4G said:
I'll be honest, I am running the latest Nova launcher and I haven't noticed any dropped frames or hiccups whatsoever. Everything seems buttery smooth.
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apex is the smoothest launcher at the moment. nova ( i have the paid version ) is not that smooth like action launcher 3,
i'm only running apex for now
The app drawer and everything runs better , try and see yourself , you'll be impressed.
Great discovery. Nova and Google Now was always my go-to launcher but I have noticed frame drops. Very minimal, but I guess some of us are cursed to notice these things.
I always end up reverting to the stock launcher after awhile. I'll try the suggestion above and give Apex a run for a few days.
Also, anyone find it weird that some widgets like the default clock widget can't be used with other launchers?
Sent from my LG-H818
JustinDulay said:
Also, anyone find it weird that some widgets like the default clock widget can't be used with other launchers?
Sent from my LG-H818
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Not weird at all, LG based widgets are baked into the LG launcher. Same thing happens with Samsung based widgets, can only use them on the TW launcher.
I'm using stock LG's launcher and it works very nice for me. I disabled Smart Bulletin option from settings and the launcher flies. With this feature enabled the launcher was getting laggy after a few hours of use ,now it's just perfect.
The only thing that drives me crazy about the Stock launcher is the lack of backgrounds for the icons. I like all my icons to feel somewhat uniform. I know the LG Launcher supports themes (basically icon packs)... but the Verizon model has this ripped out. I know it is accessible through some song and dance but the icon packs were pretty bare, only like 20 icons to cover the basics. Some custom packs have more but still barely cover the grand scheme of play store apps.
Overall good find though. I actually really like Action launcher 2 and run it on my tablets but I am unsure about on a smaller device I intend to use with 1 hand. I know you can setup swipes to pull open the drawer. At least we have options. I wonder if this happens on other devices, or just LG?
Very interesting to see that Lollipop based launchers stagger. Although KitKat was the best Android experience I ever had. Lollipop is fun but on the LG (or other skinned devices) the change is miniscule. KitKat ran like a beast on the G2 but started having problems when it upgraded to Lollipop.
I use KISS Launcher. No framerate loss there.