Most likely you could have restored it by installing the launcher back with adb or worst case reset the device. That will bring back all apps as well. Unless you have a rooted phone and removed the apps that way.
Android OS updates have been somewhat lackluster since Android 8/9. The OS and smartphones in general are increasingly becoming mature products with little true differentiation.
They will try to leverage “AI” to accelerate upgrade cycles, but we’ll see how that goes.
I’m looking forward to hopefully being able to change the device I’m playing audio out of without having to start Spotify, that way I can change it before I blare fart sounds out of my car speakers or something
It’s important to note that Android ≠ AOSP (Android Open Source Project). Most of the actually interesting features advertised in a new Android release won’t be available to you if your not installing Google Services.
E.g. heavily advertised features like Android 12’s “Material You” adaptive themes aren’t even available on AOSP and thus GrapheneOS, CalyxOS or LineageOS.
New privacy features often already existed for years on custom ROMs like LineageOS.
This is why since around Android 10 I’m not even following new Android releases, at least not beyond reading glancing over an article. I didn’t even notice my phone updated to from 12 to 13 (GrapheneOS) until I noticed the new background apps menu, which is pretty much all of the changes.
Edit: Being able to set a language per app is a great feature of Android 13.
Edit 2: As pointed out in comments below, my Material You example was wrong.
A better example are heavily advertised translation and image editing features, which are sometimes locked to Pixel and definitely locked to installs with Google Services. Same is true for apps like “Digital Wellbeing”, which don’t work on AOSP but its features are advertised as Android features.
tl;dr
Android updates are even more uninteresting if your using a custom ROM, because most features won’t even be available in open source Android.
Where do you get such information from? I’m using official LineageOS and it has Material You. There is indeed a separate implementation for Pixels afaik but the difference is very little
You’re right, my apologies for confidently spreading misinformation and thank you for pointing it out. Material You colors are available on LineageOS and GrapheneOS, probably CalyxOS too.
With Android 12 GrapheneOS and CalyxOS choosing different colors was not possible, maybe because they didn’t implement something at first, but with 13+ Material You works as intended.
Mostly I use custom launchers because I don’t like the Google News feed and the general UI layout of the stock launcher. KISS launcher has been perfect for me.
I can’t offer any new ones to you but I know Nova has the Google feed. I’ve had to disable it on the last few installs I performed. I’ve noticed not a single Pixel feature that Nova lacks.
lawnchair because of its customizability. icons i want (or made) where i want them to be.
i disable all widgets and feeds anyway so the simpler it’s, the better it is for me. A launcher should become invisible. It should be forgotten behind muscle memory.
Pear launcher has worked great for me. I’m actively trying not to use Google services and Google news is useless to me. I use an RSS reader instead. Pear launcher seems to have no trackers and allows making tabs in the apps screen the way I want. There’s not a huge deal more I need from my launcher.
I also use KISS launcher as a google search replacement. If I tap home button on the home screen then it calls KISS launcher search to find results on my phone (or send to the internet search shortcuts I have set).
If you mean the thing that you get when you swipe right from the main screen, Microsoft Launcher has its own version of that. I use the launcher for how it allows me to arrange the screens and such and disable the news feed while also not having ads anywhere in it, so I don’t know if or how you change the sources, but it is functionally the same as the default Pixel launcher’s.
I love Discreet Launcher because it let’s me quickly acces any of my apps with 1-3 quick movements, allows me to actually appreciate my wallpaper and does everything a launcher needs to (launch apps obviously)
It’s probably not for everyone though, I’m a Window Manager instead of full blown Desktop Environment kind of guy
I also use square. I don’t think I could use a smartphone that has a different layout anymore. But my first smartphone was a Windows phone, so it’s engrained in me.
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