It's a Nerd's life: 7 Days with the Action Launcher

Prologue:

So, I thought that I would do a completely different type of review and I will be reviewing something different to what I usually try and review. I’ve decided to do a seven day diary of my experiences using the Action Launcher Pro launcher by Chris Lacy (the creator of Tweetlanes also). With this article, I will write about my experience with the launcher over each day, talking about the pros and cons that I have with it whilst using it as my main launcher. I hope you enjoy this type of article as it is something different and will hopefully give you a different perspective on the launcher.

Day 1

After downloading the Launcher yesterday and it now being late evening the day after, I wanted to do days from beginning to end, not count half a day as that doesn’t take into account a full day of battery life. My experience with the Launcher at first today was not a good one as for around the first hour after I woke up, it was laggy, kept freezing and scrolling through widgets was horrible. However, after a force close, it then sorted itself out and has run perfectly smoothly since then. In a recent Google+ update from Chris Lacy himself, he has said that these sort of things will become 99% extinct in the 1.5 update that he says will be released tomorrow. I will update the Launcher and note any additions.

Post Force Close, the launcher ran smoothly going into and coming out of applications very quickly which allowed nice and quick productivity. Luckily as I was coming from stock, I had no problem porting all of my widgets from the Import option you get when you first install the application (currently only works with Apex, Nova, TouchWiz and Stock Android launcher).

I instantly converted my folders into “covers” which are a really intelligent idea from the developer. Basically covers allow you to have folders as normal but set one application as the application that opens when you tap the folder, to open the folder it’s a minor swipe up on the app icon. It sounds like something that could take some getting used to, but in practice works brilliantly and I find myself swiping up on all folders on people’s phones now to open them, after only a day!

Day 2

Today, we the application was updated to version 1.5 which introduced the evolution of widgets which is a feature called “shutters”. What “shutters” allow are for you to be able to swipe up or down on any app that has a widget and this will open up that app’s corresponding widget. I have found this fairly useful in my first few hours of using it as it allows me to get a sneak preview into each application without having to completely open it. I will be talking more about shutters tomorrow when I’ve had more time to experience them and give a verdict on whether they’re a positive thing for the launcher or more of just a momentary novelty.

In terms of general performance, I’ve been continuously getting good results in terms of speed, animation and all round smoothness with the launcher. Battery is something I’ve not been WOWed by and isn’t something I’d download this application for. However, I was getting around 5 and a half hours of screen on time on Stock Android and I’m getting around 5 - 5 1/2 hours with this launcher also. I feel however, that with the use of shutters, this battery life could improve as I wouldn’t have the need for multiple widgets.

Day 3

On my third day today, I’ve taken the phone out for a whole day and was really impressed with the length of standby time that the phone had. I took it off the charger around 12:45 in the afternoon (I know, I should get out of bed earlier) and still have around 50% now as I write this at 23:06. Standby time is just as important as screen-on time in my opinion as if you’re out in a big city and aren’t using your phone has much as you’re spending the whole day socialising, then later you may need your phone to make some calls and check up transport home, then it’s always great to know your phone still has half juice left!

One Home Screen

I cut my phone down to just one screen today to force myself to use the “shutters” feature that was implemented in the latest update. I have found it VERY useful. As you can see below, I use four main folders where I categorise Social, Productivity, Entertainment and News & Information and so next to ALL my applications can be found in these folders and those that aren’t are apps I use rarely such as games and the such. Having these four folders and shutters means if I want to quickly check a checklist on WunderList I can simply open the folder and swipe up on the app to see them and even interact them. Or if I wanted to quickly check my messages, I can quickly swipe up on the Text Messaging app icon. Shutters has really opened up a bit portal into the next generation of how widgets could be used. I’m a LITTLE skeptical about how the applications look with the shutters icon as I am a big fan of symmetry and that’s hard to achieve with these icons, but I can’t think of any better way to do it, so it’s not a big deal.

"Shutters"

Once during the day I used the quick-search feature along the top row also that allows you to instantly search for any app, contact or Google Search something directly from the top bar. I think this is a brilliant feature and something I ALWAYS love is a universal search feature on mobiles as it just saves huge amounts of time.

"Universal Search"

Day 4

Today, I decided to put the launcher’s battery through it’s paces and left my phone on ALL day. The results were very impressive, as all ready mentioned, the launcher has an incredible standby time length and this is something really important. The screenshots you can see were taken after a day at home with the phone by my side the whole time using it to casually browse, WhatsApp nearly all day and just do the usual 1,000,000 screen turn ons to check I don’t have notifications that I’ve missed. The results in general for the battery life were very impressive with nearly 6 hours of screen-on time which is an incredibly good score for a phone that doesn’t have an especially large battery but has a 720p display and quad-core processor etc.

The performance was as good as always and feels even more solid after the update to include shutters. There are times when I go from an application to the home screen and it has some sort of visual glitch where the centre of the screen disappears, but this goes after about half a second and so isn’t a major problem and may be something to do with shutters themselves.

The menu tray is something I’m still not a HUGE fan of and is definitely something I feel makes the launcher a little worse. However, if you’re downloading this launcher it is likely for the app tray as you feel it’ll improve productivity. However, my personal preference is to have the application menu so that you can swipe sideways and see multiple applications rather than scroll through them.

Day 5:

Fifth day with the Action launcher and I’m starting to bore a little with the application tray and it’s something that will eventually deter me from the Launcher. However, features such as Shutters, Covers and the Universal Search make me really want to keep the Launcher as they make searching and using applications a lot faster and a lot easier. We’ll see how I feel in the next couple of days as to whether I feel I want to transfer back and risk not having Shutter and Covers.

"Application Tray"

Performance is just as smooth as always and is another reason I’m a big fan of this Launcher; some Launchers slow the phone and this one doesn’t do that and feels very stock-ish in that way. It allows for new features such as Shutters, Covers and Universal Search, but doesn’t use up a whole lot of power doing so and as a result is fast and conserves power well.

Day 6

Second-to-last day with the Action Launcher and I have to say that I am really a fan of the two main features that this launcher offers, the Covers and the Shutters. I am now tuned to using the both of them, swiping up on applications and folders to access them has become a natural thing for me to do when wanting to access them. Shutters is especially helpful as it means you don’t have to shift through multiple home screens to find your music widget, or your calendar or your list of tasks that you need to complete, you can simple find the application icon on the main homescreen and swipe up! It’s a gesture that’s simple but with this launcher is really very useful and saves quite a bit of time and potentially battery life also due to having less homescreens to run.

As I’ve done one most days so far, I’ll do a performance update; the launcher has continuously been responsive and smooth and you definitely won’t be hindered on performance with it. However, the problem where when returning to the homescreen and part of the screen disappearing momentarily is something that may slowly niggle away and annoy you, however I’m sure the developer will have realised this and be working on a fix as we speak.

Day 7

Final day with the Action Launcher and today was the day I decided I wasn’t going to keep the Action Launcher. I mean, don’t get me wrong, the two standouts features of Action launcher really can entice someone to keep it and are truly great innovations by the developer, something I think he’ll keep doing with the Launcher. But I’m a big fan of your homescreen just being your homescreen and then having your applications as a separate part of the phone. The application tray doesn’t allow this and if Chris Lacy would add in the option to switch to the normal application style, I’d likely download the Launcher again.

The speed and stability of the launcher impressed me throughout and the fact that it kept battery life up was also incredibly impressive and another highlight of this Launcher.

So you’re probably wondering if you should spend the money and download this Launcher? I would say if you’re a minimalist who prefer not to have pages of widgets and just wants to be able to access apps, widgets and the search feature with one simple swipe or tap, then I’d DEFINITELY recommend this Launcher. However, if you are someone who likes your pages of widgets, who likes to have a separate side-scrolling applications draw then I would recommend maybe not paying the money, or downloading the application for the 15-minute window just to try it out.

I usually rate applications on inidividual parts of the application, however there are so many things to rate about a Launcher, I thought I’d just give the Launcher an Overall Score and the highlights and lowlights.

Highlights