yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Agrajag27:
I'm a long-time Go Launcher user (Launcher Pro user before that) and lately much hype has surrounded Nova Launcher so I decided to give it a shot.

After playing with it for part of a day I'm wondering what all the fuss is. So far, Go Launcher seems to provide everything Nova Launcher does. In fact, for free it provides features you can only get for the premium version of Nova. What am I missing here?

Nova Comments:

1. It doesn't feel as responsive as Go Launcher.

2. My contact icons have no images while they do automatically on Go Launcher.

3. It has the same bug as Go Launcher with not being able to display the text for widget descriptions (when selecting widgets).

4. No real themes.

The reason I'm asking this is that I use swipe up for my dock apps to do multiple things and that feature is only a pay feature. If there's a compelling reason to stick with Nova then I'll buy it. However, since it's not just a buck or two I wanted this to be a good choice and not just an impulse buy that I never use again.

Thanks.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] MaartenXDA:
I'd rather go for nova cause I like the UI of the settings more, and the GO Launcher has to much advertisement stuff. But I still think that apex is even better, It's IMO faster, and better responsiveness.

Sent from my awesome fridge
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ast00:
Go launcher is full of bloatware, it's 10MB and it isn't so good lower end phones.

Tapatalk 2-vel küldve az én GT-S5570-ről
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Agrajag27:
I'll look at Apex but regarding Go Launcher being bloatware, so far that's not an issue for me. It runs great on my RAZR. Still nothing solid on why Nova is better.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] MaartenXDA:
Nova has options to import desktop data from other launchers, and options to backup desktop data and restore, although I'm not sure if you can do that on go launcher.

Sent from my awesome fridge
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Agrajag27:
Thanks. Looking over Apex now and, so far, it looks identical to Nova. In fact, I'd say so far I have the same issues as I already posted for Nova.

I assume these apps were related at one point?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] jujuburi:
Yeah, Apex is identical to Nova. If you compare the latest version of both Apex and Nova, Nova is little smoother than Apex. But I like Apex more.

I used Go for at least 6 straight months on my Galaxy S2, but since then they have gone too much bloated.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tp2215:
On my device go launcher is slow as hell. I actually want to like go launcher because of all the features but it slows my phone down and takes up wayyyyy to much memory. Nova or apex are lightning fast and put everything right where I need it.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Agrajag27:
So if I decided on one of these how do you decide between Nova or Apex given that they're so similar? Both are $4 (more or less).

The reason I'd consider it is that bloat (even though I'm not seeing it yet so any details there might help) is nothing I'm a fan of having come from an OG Droid. Sooner or later you run into issues.

Are there solutions to the issues I've mentioned? For example, can I get the widget menu to show text? I can't believe all three have this issue and have had it forever. Is there a way to get my contacts to have their Facebook profile pictures as they do in Go Launcher?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tetrahedonism:
Nova Launcher has a lot more features and gets updated quite frequently. It also has gesture support for dock icons, and normal launcher icons now too. It also has unread counters, and a literal crap ton of options.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Agrajag27:
What are "normal launcher icons"?

And you say NL has "a lot more features". More features than Apex? More than Go Launcher? If so, can you elaborate as a new user I'm not seeing these.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] jujuburi:
Nope, I don't think any launcher other than SS has more options than Go. Yes, the new update of Nova does bring some new features like icon gesture feature and all, but it's not the case of 'how many' features, but 'how good' are they. Like I am having constant crashes for unread notifier in Nova since last update, on Apex you don't even need to install any third party app/plugin for unread notifications. I also like how Apex grids the icon on desktop when big grid size is applied. I like how Apex re-size the icon and also re-size it's level, while Nova doesn't re-size the level. You know it ultimately depends on YOU, how you wanna use, what features you like and all.

Well I am paid user of Nova, well I don't regret it, but at the same time I think that I should've purchased Apex. But one thing for sure, I will never buy Next or SPB Shell, not for money, cause they ask WAY TOO much for what's given.

So you might think, which one you should buy, Nova or Apex, well, no one can say just toss a coin. But if I were you and tossed a coin and saw Nova winning, then I will toss it again for Apex, lol.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] soulshinobu:
Apex seems to run better as a system app, from what I can tell.

Sent from my SPH-D710
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] STELKER:
New version of nova launcher is smoother than apex for me.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Agrajag27:
jujuburi,

I went ahead and paid for Apex last night and will likely pay for Nova as well. I wanted to ask about some of the above comments.

1. What is Icon Gesture Feature? Is that swiping up or down on any icon regardless of where it is? I use swipe up for some of my dock icons (swipe up on Phone and I launch People.... swipe up on Maps and I launch Navigation).

2. I noticed that on Nova my widgets seemed oddly shaped (4x4). On Apex they're just as I'm used to them on Go Launcher. Is this related to the grid issue you mentioned? If not, how can I see what you mean?

3. What do you mean by resize a "level"???
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] jujuburi:
First off all, very good decision on buying Apex, and also taking Nova in consideration.

1- Icon gesture feature is the one where you press and hold on an icon, then you'll be given a pop up menu, press edit, then you'll see this screen,

,

then this one, if you press on the Swipe action,

You can then choose any option you want. But so far I've seen it only works upwards, Swiping right, left or downwards don't work.

2- Yes, I think that is due to the grid size. I like how Apex reacts on grid size than Nova.

3- By level I mean the app names along with them. You see that if you set icon size to 75% on Nova the icon will get smaller, but weird thing is the name level will remain of same size! Which looks pretty bad. On Apex, the level also changes along with icon size, which looks good.

Sent from my GT-N7100
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Agrajag27:
Yep, that's what I thought. I don't use it for anything outside the dock so, for now, no need. Thus Apex meets the demand.

I also finally figured out how to see the text for widgets by using the Root Helper option. Finally! The only confusion was the note about installing Apex as a system app but they don't really tell you why you'd want to do that. For now the only reason seems to have an alternative to the first option for widget interface.

The last thing I really need to resolve are my contact images. Go Launcher is able to see the contact images from Facebook. Apex apparently can't so nearly all my contact icon images are just the default black silhouette on a blue background icons. Very boring. There has to be a way to feed these profile pictures to these icons but short of saving each one as an image manually and then applying it, I don't see a simple solution.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Galactus:
Can't you just assign images with something like Haxsync so the images are saved on to your contacts forever?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Agrajag27:
That works. Thanks. I also just found that Friendcaster does it too. Good to go on this.

Interestingly now another issue has cropped up. I'm now noticing home page refreshes which I didn't notice before. I see this is an issue with Apex. Hopefully it's fixed soon. I dumped Launcher Pro over that issue long ago.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] DesignGrits:
I was a long time Go Launcher person since its release until they changed the UI earlier last year. At first the UI was full of bloat and slow, but since I use the latest betas from there blog site I don't run in to the bloat issue. Other then Go Launcher, Nova and SSL Launcher are my favorite launchers. Nova has normal android animations and is very user friendly, and if you know how to use nova's extra labs options you get more out of it.

The problem with Go Launchers new UI, and which I have been complaining about on there blog since day one is that creating widgets/Apps from the home screen in landscape mode changes the orientation of the screen to portrait mode. Its absolutely ridiculousness. If I have my phone in landscape its there for a reason, so don't force users to change to portrait! It doesn't help that you can't add them from the app drawer but being a GNote user I prefer to hold my phone in landscape to take advantage of the real estate.

Another minor issue I found is that Go Launcher does not play nice with Multi-Live Wallpapers. I honestly don't like how they shifted their focus on releasing a new launcher called Next Launcher that really isn't that good and in early development. Go Launcher was named the most best launcher of 2011-2012 by popular vote on LifeHackers, so there was really no reason to stop and work on something else when they were doing so good. Hopefully future Go Launcher Development doesn't suffer from it. I would love to use it again but not until they fix the orientation issue. And yes they are well aware of that issue, I have been posting the complain every time they release a new beta version so at some point they will listen.

LifeHackers Article: http://lifehacker.com/5919526/most-popular-android-launcher-go-launcher-ex
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] yken:
I install every beta of go but i never liked go launcher but its the best launcher with many options and widgets.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] negrobembon:
I like go its pretty cool but those ads everywhere with no option to take em out are a deal breaker
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Agrajag27:
Ads? Coming from Go Launcher EX I don't think I ever saw an ad anywhere. Where are you seeing these?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] DesignGrits:
Never in my whole life seem an ads on Go Launcher. When you launch the app for the first time you get widgets displayed on your home screens that give you optional apps to download from Go Launcher, but you can delete them and they are nothing like adds.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] negrobembon:
U guys never got any apps in the notification bar? All the time
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] DesignGrits:
nope, never
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] negrobembon:
Wierd, in my gNote i used to get go ads pushed to the status bar all the time

Thats why i uninstalled, maybe they took them out
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] DesignGrits:
Weird, I have never got them on any of the betas or play store versions I have had in the past
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] quazimodem:
Custom ad blocking rom maybe?
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] DesignGrits:
Not me, I flash roms like crazy and always download the new betas when they come out. So I would have seen them at some point if I was getting any.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] reeher3287:
So does apex

sent from my PACed EVO LTE! Best of 3 Roms baby!

---------- Post added at 04:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:29 PM ----------

Its not go that does the ads its most of its themes esp if it has a paid version. The free will always have push ads. Been there done all that. Go is more all in one and little easier to jump in but apex is vastly streamed line in comparison with size and speed. Anything you can do on go you can do on apex and then somde. Only things you can't is say gos own widgets same as in you can't use sense widgets unless your using sense. Nova is damn good too, but it seems buggier and lags a little more sometimes compared to apex. But nova still beats the pants off go

sent from my PACed EVO LTE! Best of 3 Roms baby!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] adytcullen:
yep,,

when i use go launcer,feel lag.

but when i use nova, feel smoother than go launcher,,

but in go launcher is much fiture,

go launcher, go locker and etc.

but when i instal all of them,,

it's making more lag..
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] DesignGrits:
Go Launcher Beta 4 got rid of all the lag for me and alot of other people.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] LordManhattan:
It's quality over quantity.

Nova: It's clean and fast. You get what you pay for. In this case, responsive dev, nice updates and overall high quality from A to Z.

Go Launcher: Again, you get what you pay for, and in this case it's free so you get a bloated launcher with a lot of in-app crap. Want to add something to the launcher? Download or pay for it. And it's really ugly with a lot of shiny buttons and bling. Not my taste.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] DesignGrits:
Have to agree, but I would have to disagree with the in-apps bloat. Maybe because I am running the betas, but I don't have alot of bloat and its smooth and responsive.

I wouldn't say that you get what you pay for is the right term, because nova and apex I believe are based on aosp which is easy to maintain and upgrade, rather go launcher which is completely built from scratch and takes longer to implement changes if you are not on beta.

Shiny buttons and bling are not my taste either but theres alot it everywhere.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Galactus:
Nova has always been the smoothest for me, Apex lagged a little. Haven't tried Go Launcher since Nova/Apex first came out!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] sam5154:
there is 5 reasons that I prefer Nova Over all other Launchers:

1-It's fast, light, lag free and yet feature-reach.

2-Consistent search bar (over GO, OEMs, and almost all other launchers)

3-Folders in App drawer (over apex,ADW, AOSP and Trebuchet)

4-Custom color theme.(Again over almost all other launchers)

5-Widget grouping.

6-Reasonable Price.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] reeher3287:
Lol

1 apex has

2 apex has

3Got me there

4 ditto

5 apex has

6 forget price been so long since I bought both

:D

sent from my PACed EVO LTE! Best of 3 Roms baby!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tobias14:
Currently am using Next launcher, but after trying basically all popular launchers out there I must say Nova is the best..

It is lightweight and smooth as hell...Go was never completely smooth for me..
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] negrobembon:
Apex may be fast but nova is way too fast, more than any launcher imo
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Shacamus:
Hello,

FYI i used both of them (amongst many of other launchers).

But my favorite is Nova. Indeed, Nova is very light, quite complete for me.

But on the other hand, Go Launcher can be quite customised and has a lot of plugins :)
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] republicano:
go launcher became too bloaty or so many functions and services I didn't need,I havent tried it lately

apex is the best for me, nova is good but one part I hate is when make a folder of icons in the homescreen, it doesn't hide the folder name even though there is an option to hide it, does not work, so its unnamed, apex doesnt have this issue as it hides this part, holo has this too last time I checked
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] clonednull:
i would say the only negative point of go launcher is that it is memory and procesor power hungry but never ever can nova or apex launcher beat it in the feature / customization posibilities

with the right hardware you can run go launcher as smooth as any other launcher we are talking about here (in my case a sgs2)

all other is placebo effect or wrong software configuration installed on the device

and there were never ever any ads in go launcher pushed as notifications or smthg except notifications about new themes and so on, but realy rarely for such a good free launcher imho

i love customization and go launcher has set the benchmark this high that all other launcher just dont satisfy me at this point

the only reason for me to install apex or nova launcher would be if the phones hardware configuration would be to low to support go
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Sh4rKo:
i prefer go launch it's much more responsive
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kudaj316:
Apex is good for customizations, go to mycolorscreen.com youll know what i mean,
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] sliv5:
I recently switched from Apex to Nova and couldn't be happier. It seems to be more customizable and seems cleaner. My biggest complain with Apex was that certain widgets that weren't a standard size had to be resized to be to big and take up extra space or be cut off. This is due to the way appex works on a grid. I much prefer Nova for this reason and others.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] slonn:
Also switched from Apex to Nova. I did it because widgets load immediately on Nova on both my Galaxy Note II and Motorola Xoom. With Apex there was a short (yet annoying) delay on updating the HD widget when turning on the device. Nova is just more responsive.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] l.Urker:
Used Apex, Nova and GO launcher for my tablet, and all 3 seem to run perfectly smoothly on it. The only difference would be the features and what you are looking for i guess.

Swyped from my M9704
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] medkintos:
Because I love the minimalism of Nova launcher. GO launcher just ate my system memory
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] reeher3287:
Well novas final kick in the butt for me is having a 3rd app just for notification badges. Apex has it built in. :p

sent from my PACed EVO LTE!! Best of 3 Roms baby!!
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] negrobembon:
gotta give you that one
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] loserrahul:
Nova name should be changed to SuperNova launcher

Sent from exynos source lacking I9300 S3 via xda premium
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] negrobembon:
if you're talking about speed then yeah, nova is bullet fast
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Mogasce:
Nova!

Hey new to xda,

been using nova for nearly a year now and it's probably the best launcher in terms of speed and that stock google look, Go Launcher just seems outdated and bloated to me however there are loads of themes for it
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] talhamid:
THing is, GO comes from an era when default Android launcher used to suck. Then came Android 4.0 and along with it came a wonderful new launcher which nevertheless had some stupid limitations. Nova started life as a launcher almost identical to AOSP launcher, which those restrictions lifted: endless homescreens and grid sizes. Theming etc came later. It enabled gestures etc, and deep customization of the dock, all the while adhering religiously to stock Android look.

Most importantly, it enabled a feature I absolutely cannot live without: vertically scrollable apps and widgets in app drawer. Trust me, once you have used the drawer in that way, the default Android drawer makes no sense.

I believe the next major step came when most of these features were enabled even without root. 4th step came when it became compatible with ADW and Go theming. I am a user of Nova since November 2011 and have never looked back. I tried Apex but ultimately had to give in to my Nova loyalty and the fact that TeslaCoil's app was the first one that broke the shackles imposed on AOSP launcher.

Go Launcher is a relic of a bygone era - these days most users prefer stock Android look and feel. If you see carefully, this is the same phenomenon behind the popularity of CM, AOKP and PA ROMs. These days, a phone comes into its own only when an AOSP based ROM drops onto it. Before Android 4.0, AOSP UI used to suck pretty hard. After that, however, Nova pretty much blows even TouchWiz and Sense launchers out of the water with deep customization, unparalleled speed and of course, STOCK ANDROID look. Its probably the best app I have purchased on Play Store.

Just be careful to get the settings right in Nova and you can't go wrong with it - still the perfect launcher IMHO.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Brahmnoor:
Hi guys,

Check out this article Nova Launcher vs Go Launcher, it says everything !
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] drewniany92:
Odp: Nova Launcher vs. Go Launcher. Why Nova?

Everything depends on what do u want to reach. If u want get fully customizable laincher than you should choose go. And if u want to reach speed and responsivity and keep quite nice look of ur android than head for nova. Go launcher has a lot of unnecessary stuff, is heavy while it looks great and has a lot of themes available. Nova, imo, is not as beautiful as go, but for low end user (who i am) the most important business is speed and responiveness of launcher. Nova also is much lighter and needs less ram (;

Wysyłane z mojego HTC Wildfire za pomocą Tapatalk 2
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Drew35:
I just switched from Go to Nova Launcher prime. Well worth the $4! My phone is much more responsive and although there may be more theming options with Go, it's a fair trade off to get rid of the lag and hiccups.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] kaikun97:
i dont know why people say go launcher is slow and laggy. go launcher runs smooth on my very low end huawei u8160
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] drewniany92:
Odp: Nova Launcher vs. Go Launcher. Why Nova?

hmmm, idk if u have gpu on ur device but i haven't this feature unfortunately and for me nova runs much better on ics roms (which also aren't belonging to the fastest roms for my device) than go on gb roms. go launcher was good until the devs started to put in it unnecessary stuff like go store etc.

Wysyłane z mojego HTC Wildfire za pomocą Tapatalk 2
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] dryphi:
Have to say I agree with most users on here - it's largely user preference.

As for me, I'm sticking with Nova for the time being.

One thing still remains unanswered though - how do you get the Facebook contact icons?

EDIT: UberSync. It's free in the app store and seems to be working okay.
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] axxxel46:
NOVA!! Ever faster than go launcher apex adn co.:D
[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Velocifero:
This article is biased as sh*t, and it's full of holes.

"Go Launcher does hang a bit sometimes, and crashes in lower end mobiles because of low RAM."

Go Launcher never crashed on my Charge that had only 512MB of RAM. And this is compared to Nova Launcher? Nova requires Ice Cream Sandwich. Which "lower end mobiles" have that?

"Both Nova Launcher and Go Launcher are quite reliable and stable, but Nova Launcher was much more stable than the Go Launcher"

Does he mean one crashes less than the other? How many hours did he use them both to figure that out? I've used both and neither has crashed, or really lagged for that matter. Especially go launcher which I've used on three phones so far. Samsung Charge, HTC Rezound, and Samsung Galaxy S4. BOTH are super fast and responsive. I killed both launchers, relaunched, cycled through the screens and GL was sitting at 146MB of RAM and NL was sitting at 78MB. Hardly a difference in numbers and no difference in speed even on my old Charge (couldn't use Nova on the Charge of course)

"Menu Customisation"

Why is this even a category? Why is this so important? Once it's setup to one's liking, it shouldn't be messed with that much after that. Even if it is, who seriously cares about the opacity of the menu? -_-

It sounds like the author was trying way too hard to make Nova look superior. It isn't. Neither is GO. Both are great. Nova looks like AOSP, GO doesn't. That's basically it. GO has a ton more homescreen transitions, though.