Posted by ktosobcy 6 days ago
> Cliff: Branch owns Nova completely and Kevin has no access to it in any way at all. So no, he can't re-brand, keep coding and go forward. That's a breach of contract on his behalf.
...but this post says they are obligated to:
> Cliff: Much more to it than word of mouth. There's a contract as well.
Two breaches of contract don‘t make a right
Apparently there are two conflicting contracts (or two sections within one contract), and Branch is counting on the fact that Branch can go after Kevin but Kevin can't/won't. Or maybe the contract is clear, but Kevin just doesn't want to burn the ships.
Branch is obliged to open source the Launcher.
That’s it.
An employee of a company just isn’t allowed to do it on his own.
If a company refuses to pay a bill that it should pay, then one of its accountants cannot simply transfer money.
My reason to use Nova before was:
- REMOVE search bar from home screen, unlike the Pixel launcher
- Have the usual, customizable row of quick launchers across the bottom
- Have basic app drawer and background apps gestures pull up from bottom
- Add a couple basic widgets like Calendar and clock to home screen, or other app shortcuts
- Minimal permissions, no ads, no network-based features
Based on this, I just started trying out Fossify Launcher Beta, installed from F-Droid. It seems OK so far. My only complaint is that there seem to be multiple gestures that open up a Launcher menu, and I wish this was limited to just long press on the home screen background.
Also having some issues getting widgets on there... But Android is Android, so I'm sure it's not Fossify Launcher's fault, I had the widget I wanted and then I removed it cause I wanted a different size, and it won't add again. A restart will probably help. (Spoiler: it didn't)
Would also be nice if I could make widgets 2.5 columns wide. I like a 5 wide screen, but I want two widgets to share the screen width.
I also noticed that the widget editing is a bit clumsy with resizing on Fossify Launcher. It seems like there is some hidden state where long-press doesn't quite work the same way after some interaction. But I was able make progress after going through several other interactions like opening the menu via back gesture from home screen, locking and unlocking the screen, etc.
I don't know if it is Android or the launcher itself that makes the widget sizing so annoying. It seems to have a different bounding box for the resizing tool than what is actually rendered, so I end up with way more dead space around the widgets than I wanted.
I saw a prerelease one on Play Store that said it would do extra feedback telemetry. I bailed at that point and didn't look further.
I'm bummed Sesame got bought by these guys and stopped updating for no ultimate reason.
I'd recommend you to at least try it for a while before you slam down the opinionated hammer.
I like that I have to consciously type in who j app I want to open. Prevents me from spacing out and opening reddit out of pure habit.
Makes opening go-to apps faster, but opening anything else slower. Worth it imo
Besides being a good, very simple, minimalistic launcher, it's also Open Source (https://github.com/tanujnotes/Olauncher), ad-free, and collects and shares no data.
If the developer is building the code that's on GitHub, it is curious why AppGoblin flags the Play Store version for using Firebase: https://appgoblin.info/apps/app.olauncher/data-flows
Once you get used to it, you'll never get back to classic launchers.
I really like the intentionality of what I launch, and I find the "search for app" faster than folders.
It's available on IzzyOnDroid, though I installed the GitHub release. It does have some bugs, every now and then it freezes and you need to go to the Apps submenu in Configuration to restart it.
Hyperion seemed to have all necessary features, but the UI was unintuitive and the documentation non-existent.
I also liked Lynx, but that would be a major change for me.
It sucks and there is nothing anyone can do really, but maybe you'd consider making a brand new launcher?
Edit: Oh I just got the name, it's a "launcher"