I don’t get it, I’m on iOS 17 and can move them around? I came from a pixel and I was surprised that you could. And you can also stack widgets which is nice
Welcome to 2013, Apple fans! Maybe in 5 more years you’ll get homescreen widgets customizable layouts (change number of apps per row etc). In 10 you might get custom launchers!
Welcome to 2013, Apple fans! Maybe in 5 more years you’ll get home screen widgets.
We actually do have home screen widgets, as of like 2020. They got it sometime before I had my iPhone. And an app drawer!
As a former Android user, my iPhone home screen looks wildly different from people who’ve had iPhones for many years. I have very few icons on my home screen, I have widgets taking up most of the top of the screen to push the icons I do have down near my fingers (because Springboard is still stupid as of iOS 17, as this gif is pointing out), I have more widgets to the left (“Today View,” Apple calls this, it’s basically just a scrolling widget section), and then the app drawer equivalent to the right (which Apple calls “App Library”). It’s clean and beautiful and reminiscent of my lovely Nova launcher setup I had on my beloved OnePlus 7T Pro (may it rest in peace).
Whereas most longtime iPhone users just have page after page after page of apps and folders. Every app they own is on there somewhere. Which is ridiculous since on iOS you can just swipe down, type the first few letters of the app, and there it is.
I know, right? It also took them years to improve their notifications to work like Android’s (still aren’t quite as good). And I STILL can’t do what this gif is showing because iOS 18 isn’t out.
They were kind of shit, and confined to that left-most view. The new widget system they added a couple of years ago is really nice, and the addition of making them interactive with the last update was solid too.
As someone that uses both iPhone and Android, the way it is right now Apple’s widgets feel better. I can’t quite put my finger on why exactly that is, but like with pretty much everything (stock) Android, it just feels a little bit janky. It works just fine, and I really like the adaptive theme thing that my Pixel 6 has going on, but it feels a bit off.
I toyed around with the phones side by side, and I think honestly it’s mostly just that Apple must be spending a fuckton of hours just working on getting animations to flow smoothly. That’s the main difference I notice between my Pixel 6 and my 15 Pro Max. They both have 120hz screens, but the latter doesn’t have any sort of flickering, weird clipping, animations that drop/bug out, etc. while the Pixel does.
I recorded two screencaps, doing roughly the same things, so I could see it side by side. This is from my iPhone, and this is my Pixel 6. I enabled the “record touch gesures” thingy on Android, an option I’ve no idea where/if it exists on iOS.
What’s interesting is, I learned that it actually does pick up my gesure when I try to open the app switcher, it just either ignores it, or I’m not precise enough. I’ve never had this issue on my iPhones, but I have it almost every time I use my Pixel. It then pulls up this weird unlabelled app with a bunch of squigglies in it - I genuinely don’t know what that is, and it took me aback because I was expecting the app switcher. Then there’s a bunch of random flickering. One app is “censored” and it shows my wallpaper instead, which is a bit odd but that’s fine. When dismissing the drawer, it remains briefly above the homescreen before just vanishing out of existence.
On iOS all the animations are smooth, nothing pops, flickers, or jerks. Even the padding in the widget drawer is eased in and out of existence.
Does it matter? That’s subjective. Both are solid phones, and for the price I paid for the 15 Pro Max it fucking better be. With Android you have a lot more freedom, of course. It’s not really something I value in my daily driver as my iPhone does all I want from it with zero hassle.
Before the app library existed you just had to have all the apps on a page and could not hide them. I ended up having like 20 page of apps. I eventually cleaned things up and have a page with apps I use, another page of widgets I use, and that’s it. But it took me years before I thought to do that.
Oh I know, it was madness. I briefly had a used iPhone 3GS and then was pure Android until 2022 when I got an iPhone. By the time I came back it was customizable enough that I could make it look like Android, but that’s work for someone who lived with the terrible setup it originally had. I don’t blame existing iPhone users, it’s just something I’ve noticed.
It’s funny, I’ve had an Android, a Nokia Windows Phone, and an iPhone, and Windows Phone was the only OS in which I didn’t open every single app through search. The utter lack of an app ecosystem definitely played a part, but I honestly don’t think either of the other two handle home screens/“app drawers” very well. Every modern social media platform/messenger/etc. is built around vertical continuous scrolling because it’s easier. Why is horizontal, paginated scrolling the default for home screens?
Oh, so “Glad you guys are finally getting features we had over a decade ago” is “full hatred”, but “I’m sorry, did you just send me a green text? didn’t know you were broke” is fine?
Shit - my first Android phone had widgets, customizable homescreen (not just icons - but the entire layout an launcher), and anything else custom you wanted back in 2009.
15 years late to the game in an industry that’s effectively 17 years old…
This was not allowed before. Until just recently, the technology didn’t exist to place icons anywhere in the grid. They would automatically smoosh up into orderly rows starting at the top-left with no gaps between icons. Apple is continuing to develop cutting edge innovation, though, and now you will be able to leave entire rows and columns empty, or any specific icon space you choose!
Tbh the default launchers for mobile are garbage. Scrolling around looking for icons on a desktop like environment is not intuitive. Everyone’s home screens just become a junk drawer of every app they’ve ever downloaded.
Genuinely the only way I want to use my phone. Everything I use daily is on the home screen, everything else I have to go searching for. White background, black icons, all notifications turned off. Simple and easy!
I just installed KISS to check it out, this is really nice too! I think niagara has a couple more bells and whistles, but it also could be I’m unfamiliar.
sliding across app for quick select actions is missing, haven’t figured out how to access these yet (ie to jump directly into composing an email or text)(See edit 2)
inline notifications is a big difference standing out for me, I still need to use the notification bar?
KISS seems very focused on their search bar which is feeling like a bit more typing. I can tap the circle for an app list but it’s on the far side of the phone? (See edit 1)
Niagara tries to be smart enough to bring apps you’ll want to the front homepage, when youll need it. ie connecting to Bluetooth headphones pushes my Spotify to the top. I know KISS doesn’t know my habits, but it seems simpler based on history of launches.
niagara relies on more gestures and swipes
KISS adding contacts to the home screen is a neat approach, people centric design is good
Overall It’s small details though functionallly they seem very close to me. KISS still great and I love it’s FOSS. They’re doing a solid job of a simple, get stuff done launcher. I don’t want to sound like I’m shilling, but Niagara has a free version you could evaluate for yourself
Edit: hmm after digging through the settings I see KISS supports a gesture for opening the app list - however none of the gestures are functional on my s23. Strange…
Edit2: Ah ha! Quick actions are available from the search, and add themselves to the history. I don’t love having visible duplicates but it’s workable.
Thanks for the run down! I saw there’s a free version but didn’t seem too different, so it’s good to get the opinions of a user!
Rather than having to search everything you can have your commonly used apps show in a list on the home screen. Personally I turn this off and have a clean home screen, but pin favorites above the search bar. Tapping the search bar shows the most commonly used apps.
Also I think gestures are not from search results but from the home screen. I use gestures on my blank home screen. I have it set up so a swipe down opens the notification tray, a swipe right opens the camera, swipe left opens search, swipe up opens browser. But this is customizable. Not sure if it works if you have the common apps list showing on the home screen.
I don’t think KISS has smarts like Niagara seems to. Just showing commonly used apps is about as smart as it gets. To my knowledge no notifications on the home screen either, though you can add widgets so maybe that’s solvable in some way.
Anyway, seems they are similar but Niagara is a bit superior with KISS being a bit inferior but FOSS, both good options!
Looking at iOS innovations going in android direction, they gonna make iphone with green bubbles someday and present it as amazing innovation, bet they even make you pay for subscription to make your bubbles green
To be fair, as both an iOS and Android user, the way android moves icons around drives me crazy , I much prefer the iOS “shift everything down” approach
Androids work out of the box too. The point is if you don’t like the way it works you can find alternatives. If you like stock iPhone that’s fine but I find it claustrophobic.
You’re talking to a bunch of geeks. There’s nothing wrong with the default pixel launcher. I used it for years. Most of these people have a butt ugly home screen and all kinds of ridiculous customizations that no one else has time for.
Ah yes a simple app drawer with A-Z scroll bar = NEEERRRRDDDDDD
I have the most plain home screen with dock icons and a wallpaper, and Nova Gestures to open my common apps one handed. Not a custom ROM/Xposed/TWRP/Magisk nerd since years now, live a very normal life. Do you Apple shills have a life, or is it just about consoomerism?
Hm, right now I’m on the latest and didn’t notice much. Guess I’m not a power Nova user. I really only need the shortcuts when swiping up/down on icons. I’d switch if another launcher had that. I don’t have a firewall set up either. Guess I should look into that?
This right here. Many years ago when a foodlion near me rolled out self check outs I happened to discover a way to crash the self check app and access windows running underneath.
The intern who did it didn’t know better and it’s cheaper to spend hundred of thousands on Microsoft rather than project past the next few years since whoever is in charge will be gone by then.
Welcome to the work world, where inefficiency is only problematic when it shows up on an Excel sheet.
If they only have a support team for Windows, then it makes sense to use Windows only for all their devices. If they deploy a different OS, then they need to either hire a new support team, or train the existing team for the new OS. Either way would be more expensive than the licensing fees.
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