Nova Launcher could soon introduce Nova AI, a built-in AI assistant complete with a chatbot, and a new Nova Plus subscription tier
Nova Launcher could soon introduce Nova AI, a built-in AI assistant complete with a chatbot, and a new Nova Plus subscription tier
Lawnchair is darn close, and FOSS. Recommending another closed source option usually leads down the same road.
How can you tell whether or not something is FOSS in Google Play?
Unfortunately not easily. Most mention it in descriptions or have links to GitHub/etc. For me, I used to search FDroid to check but I’m pretty selective about the apps I use. Now I do most things through Obtainium, but as a Graphene user I’m certainly not the norm.
I couldn’t find Lawnchair in F-Droid.
Sigh… Lawnchair is the absolute worst of the worst for install/discovery. Because it got taken over by another developer, it’s been all “beta” releases on GitHub forever, even though a truckload of people daily drive it.
https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair/releases
I’ve been daily driving it for a while and really want it to be better. Its hard to complain since it’s FOSS, but one of my most used features from the old Lawnchair 2 version (tabs in the app drawer) hasn’t been implemented in the new version since development was effectively reset/restarted.
Maybe it’s time to move on and check out Octopi…
OK, so I don’t recommend this often, but there is a FOSS option closer to Nova than Lawnchair. It’s called Neo Launcher: https://github.com/neoapplications/neo-launcher
It may be worth a shot, I ran the release on GitHub for about a year. I stopped because the devs are doing this brainrot thing of putting releases as beta in their Discord, so the release file on GitHub is old. I hate that practice so much that I stopped recommending it, even though it’s a slightly better launcher with more options IMO.
I appreciate the recommendation, however, I can’t support any dev who uses Discord for releases/support. I’m doing what I can to move friends and family once a viable alternative is available. I know a bunch were being recommended a couple of weeks ago, but I need 80%+ feature parity and simple a install and use flow before most will consider it.
Yup, totally get it, it’s why I don’t use it. I have Lawnchair’s GitHub URL added into Obtainium, so it’s as simple as Play Store for updates.