Published: 2023-02-06 12:00 |
Category: Life | Tags: Android, launcher, apps, ux, usability, nova, kiss
Last summer, I moved my phone to KISS Launcher. I use search across the board on my computer and I thought having the same toolset on my phone would be preferable. I used it as the main launcher for months before playing around with some others just to see if it was really the best fit. It seems like this year has seen a slew of new launchers focused a minimal, search-first approach.
After using KISS for nearly a year, I switched it back to Nova7 Prime tonight.
- UX consistency is a good thing. Whenever my wife needed to use my phone for something, she always struggled. I had KISS pretty minimal and while it worked (okay) for me, it didn't work for us.
- I really missed the swipe actions from Nova. I had those pretty dialed in to what I used the most. They make it super easy to thumb open a specific app - particularly while driving (shhh) - and I just never found a good way to do that with KISS. I know I can set favorites, but if I have all my apps on the home screen as favorites, it kind of defeats the search-first purpose.
- Folders. Folders folders folders. Grouping apps made me more efficient because I could find things quickly because they're categorized.
- I mistap with Nova less than with KISS. I don't know why, but I found myself opening the wrong thing a lot with KISS. Either because of a typo or a stray movement on the screen, it generally led to frustration.
I'm all for minimal - my phone background is flat gray and I use the Snow icon theme. And as nice as a search-based launcher sounds, it just doesn't work for my style of use most of the time.
Frankly, I'm still not thrilled with Nova's acquisition from 2022, but I'll cross that bridge when it comes. If you've got a launcher suggestion that hits those bullet points above, I'm all ears.