One for Android users
 

Action Launcher Pro: http://goo.gl/xwr4V

A nice replacement launcher for ICS and upwards, it's lightweight and jolly useful.

But the two features that have me raving about it to anyone who will listen (and a lot of people who don't want to): shutters and covers.

A cover is a folder of apps where you have specified a 'default'. Pressing the folder opens the default app, swiping up across the folder opens the folder to reveal all the apps in that folder. An example in my case is a 'utilities' folder in which I have a calculator, unit converter and so on. I have the calc as my default app so I can open it in one press, but if I want to get to the other apps I swipe over the icon and it opens the folder as a normal folder.

A shutter is an app with a linked widget. This means a swipe across the app icon opens the widget for that app without the widget having to be active on the desktop. My example is the email app - I've attached the email widget to it as a 'shutter', so a press on the icon opens the email app, and a swipe on the icon opens the email widget.

You can also nest shutters inside covers - so for the phone dialler a press of the icon goes straight to the phone dialler, a swipe lets me get to the contact list, and two swipes lets me get to my preferred contact (my wife), all from a single icon in the dock.

Seems to be pretty compatible with most overlays (Sense, Touchwiz) according to the reviews, but I have Nexus devices and can't speak from experience. It's only a couple of quid, and if you don't like it and uninstall it within 15 minutes you'll be automatically refunded.

I use Apex Launcher, the fastest and smoothest launcher out of all of them and very customisable.

Must admit I hadn't tried that - tried Nova and Go Launcher and wasn't a fan, but a colleague showed me Action Launcher and I rather liked it. Still, that's the beauty - change it however you wish :)

I used to use Go launcher but I thought it got a little bloated.

Switched to Nova and have been very happy so far. Will check out Action Launcher though.

Been running Nova for a while and have had no issues.

Holo seems to be the one of choice,

however i think its a custom rom related root thing,

That said if i recall the code, has just been made open source


Mart