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Android 4.4 KitKat launcher now just like the iPhone

  • Thread starter Thread starter Deleted User
  • Start date Start date

Do you prefer a center home screen or a left-most screen?

  • I prefer a center home screen which requires less swiping.

    Votes: 9 100.0%

  • I prefer a left-most home screen just like the iPhone.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • I like Android becoming more like the iPhone because I want an Android iPhone.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • I don't get the difference because all change is good.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    9
D

Deleted User

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I watched a video of someone demoing the Android 4.4 KitKat home launcher, and it now looks and behaves almost just like the iPhone.

The main home screen is the left-most screen, it has page dots, and you swipe to the left-most screen to get search. This is hugely frustrating for me.

Android's center main home screen was revolutionary to me, as it means it took less swipes to get to the different screens. On iOS, if I have 5 home screens, I have to swipe 4 times to get to the last screen. On Android, it was a maximum of 2 swipes either way.

Maybe Google is allowing more than 5 screens, but I've used launchers that allowed up to 9 which wasn't a problem. Also, the whole point of having limited home screens was that the rest of the shortcuts were tucked into the app drawer. Having unlimited home screens allows pointless duplication of all shortcuts. The reason the iPhone had unlimited home screens was because the home screens were the app drawer!

I'm really disappointed in Google here. The center home screen was the biggest innovation over the iPhone launcher and now they've downgraded it to a nonsensical level.

Also, the left-most swipe to search is wholly unnecessary as it's easier to just swipe up from the Home button (I thought they were going to add more shortcuts there too). I don't understand this huge shift to iPhone-like launcher behavior, and it's giving me less reason to choose Android over the iPhone as my next phone.
 
I use primarily widgets and app drawer and only haveo ne home screen, so I guess this doesn't affect me. I used to run 7 home screens with 3 of them being widget-based, but the center one was always home
 
dhinged said:
I don't understand this huge shift to iPhone-like launcher behavior, and it's giving me less reason to choose Android over the iPhone as my next phone.
Click to expand...

1. One of the 'unique selling points' of Android is choice; there are many alternative launchers available.

2. I wouldn't make assumptions based on the Nexus 5. There's no guarantee that OEMs will follow suit with their own overlays.
 
I am used to Samsung's Touch Wiz UI. I can decide which screen is my home, and add and remove screens.
 
dhinged said:
I watched a video of someone demoing the Android 4.4 KitKat home launcher, and it now looks and behaves almost just like the iPhone.

The main home screen is the left-most screen, it has page dots, and you swipe to the left-most screen to get search. This is hugely frustrating for me.

Android's center main home screen was revolutionary to me, as it means it took less swipes to get to the different screens. On iOS, if I have 5 home screens, I have to swipe 4 times to get to the last screen. On Android, it was a maximum of 2 swipes either way.

Maybe Google is allowing more than 5 screens, but I've used launchers that allowed up to 9 which wasn't a problem. Also, the whole point of having limited home screens was that the rest of the shortcuts were tucked into the app drawer. Having unlimited home screens allows pointless duplication of all shortcuts. The reason the iPhone had unlimited home screens was because the home screens were the app drawer!

I'm really disappointed in Google here. The center home screen was the biggest innovation over the iPhone launcher and now they've downgraded it to a nonsensical level.

Also, the left-most swipe to search is wholly unnecessary as it's easier to just swipe up from the Home button (I thought they were going to add more shortcuts there too). I don't understand this huge shift to iPhone-like launcher behavior, and it's giving me less reason to choose Android over the iPhone as my next phone.
Click to expand...


All of this....


...only applies to the Nexus 5. NO other Android phone is going to have that launcher unless you go to the trouble of downloading the APKs. I did so on my Nexus 4 and found the launcher to be OK, but nothing great.
 
I use Apex Launcher myself. It has a lot of customization options available for it. Great performance too. I'd never go back to using the OEM launcher.
 
As bjacks says, I believe the new launcher is only going to be available on the Nexus 5 .. which I find kinda annoying. Part of the reason I bought a Nexus was to get the latest and greatest from Google: feels like I'm being short changed.

.. despite the fact I'm not sure I like the home-screen-on-the-left thing :D

Actually, while we're on the subject of KitKat: where's the update? It's been a couple of weeks already ..
 
I do see what you mean in the OP, and I think I'd prefer to have a central homescreen. Only thing is that that would cause difficulty in having a GNow screen. I think if I needed to use more than one/two homescreens it'd affect me more, but then again, I hardly ever use GNow (I actually really like being able to use the "ok google" command anywhere on the homescreen.
 
It also reminded me of Apple the first time I saw the Google Now screen stopping wraparound on the far left screen. I believe if you turn Google Now off in Kit Kat the homescreens will wraparound again (not sure). And as others have pointed out you can always change launchers. And I'm sure some developer will release a Kit Kat ROM that has the GN screen with wraparound.
 
Hmm, HTC did that with Sense 5 - put BlinkFeed as your leftmost screen and made that the default homescreen. But (a) you could change which was the default to whatever you wanted, and (b) in the most recent versions you can turn Blink off totally. Google are however less good at listening to people, and really want you to use Google Now, so I'd not bet on them following suit.

Which leaves (c): just use a different launcher. I always insist on circular scrolling anyway - reaching one end and having to scroll all the way back drives me crazy ;)
 
I do like circular scrolling screen 7 right to screen 1. I am never more than a single move from the home screen anyway, by hitting the home hard key.
 
Nova and Apex are already updating with KitKat code, so I'm sure at some point we'll have the best of AOSP KitKat and our customized launchers.
 
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