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Completely happy Google I/O week, my fellow Android-appreciating animal! Whereas we look ahead to El Googlenheim to drop all types of attention-grabbing new goodies on our suspiciously greasy domes, I’ve bought a trio of vital truths so that you can chew over:
- Among the best elements about Android is how simple the working system makes it to take whole management of your expertise and make your cellphone work any manner you need.
- Among the best methods to harness that energy is by making the most of a customized Android launcher — an app that replaces your commonplace dwelling display setup with a extra environment friendly and customizable surroundings.
- And among the best Android launchers on the market simply bought an impressed new replace that provides much more oomph into that chance.
It is my private favourite Android launcher of the second, actually, and an app that is certainly one of my prime secrets and techniques to a extra productivity-minded Android interface association. And Goog almighty, lemme inform ya: This newest addition inside its digital partitions will actually ship your effectivity hovering.
Better of all? You will get it up and operating on any machine this second — no new Android variations or fancy-schmancy Google-I/O-announced goodness required.
Let me present you the way.
[Get Googley tips in your inbox every Friday with my Android Intelligence newsletter. Three time-saving tips as soon as you sign up!]
Your new Android widget wonders
First issues first: The launcher itself is a beautiful little ditty referred to as Niagara Launcher.
If you happen to’ve adopted my musings for lengthy, you have in all probability heard me wax poetic about it earlier than. (It is a frequent matter of dialog and adulation in my Android Intelligence Platinum useful resource group, the place it is also now grow to be a built-in perk of membership.) I’ve fallen exhausting for the intelligent and unconventional method Niagara brings to the Android dwelling display, and regardless of what number of instances I toy round with different setups, I all the time appear to finish up again in its loving embrace.
At its core, Niagara replaces the usual Android dwelling display surroundings with a easy listing of your mostly accessed apps. All the pieces else lives inside a scrolling alphabetical menu that you just pull up by swiping alongside both facet of the display.
The launcher is all about simplicity, by design, and eliminating all of the efficiency-harming litter most dwelling screens are weighed down by. To that finish, the system helps only a single on-screen widget at its uppermost edge — a part of its mission to encourage considerate configuration and preserve solely the stuff you truly work together with usually entrance and middle.
Now, although, Niagara is providing up a brand new option to put much more pertinent data at your fingertips — with out abandoning its minimalist, focus-centric philosophy.
It is an choice to stack a number of widgets on prime of one another in that one single area, thus providing you with on-demand entry to extra helpful data whereas nonetheless sustaining the launcher’s clutter-free surroundings.
See?
Now, if that appears acquainted, it ought to: An analogous form of widget-stacking setup confirmed up throughout the mobile-tech divide on the iOS facet some time in the past. However simple as it might be to write down one thing off as “an iPhone factor,” keep in mind: That form of inspiration-borrowing is not all the time a foul factor. Heck, Apple’s very adoption of widgets within the first place was a blatant Android-copying transfer. However by bringing widgets to the iPhone-totin’ plenty, Apple not directly compelled Google to begin treating widgets on Android as a precedence once more — after years of agonizing neglect. And that, in flip, has empowered builders to provide you with stuff like this. On the finish of the day, competitors is an efficient factor for us all.
And that is very evident within the delight of utilizing stacked widgets inside Niagara Launcher, particularly when you go about it in a deliberate manner and actually take the time to think about which particular widgets would most successfully improve your effectivity in that association.
For me — for the second, not less than — I’ve added two new widgets into my rotation to enrich my color-changing, Materials-You-enabled clock:
- First, with a single swipe to the left on the Niagara widget space, I can now see an inventory of my newest duties from Todoist — a top-notch Android organizational app and among the best activity managers round. After years of sticking to a streamlined Google Calendar setup for all of my duties and reminders, I have been taking part in round with utilizing it to trace sure forms of private and work duties. And having these objects a single swipe away makes it blissfully simple to inspect what random chores I should be excited about at any given second.
- Second, with single swipe to the correct on that space (or two swipes to the left; it is a round rotation), I can now see the native Android 13 battery standing widget. I’ve by no means actually used that widget earlier than, however I’ve discovered it is a useful option to shortly look and see how a lot battery life is left on my cellphone itself in addition to another linked devices — each the exact p.c and an estimate of my remaining real-world use time.
Getting began with the brand new Niagara Launcher widget stack setup could not be a lot less complicated, both. Simply obtain Niagara from the Play Retailer when you do not have already got it, then open it up and observe the prompts to set it up and set it as your default system launcher. (If you happen to ever need to change that, you’ll be able to all the time simply uninstall it — or search your system settings for the phrase “dwelling” to discover a change.)
When you’re observing your shiny new dwelling display setup, press and maintain your finger onto the generic default clock on the prime of the display and choose the “Add customized widget” possibility. (You can too flip the toggle subsequent to “Present clock,” if you wish to flip that default clock off.) Choose no matter widget you need, then observe the steps so as to add it onto your house display.
All that is left is to press and maintain your finger onto that freshly added widget and faucet the “Add customized widget” possibility as soon as extra to create your swipeable stack. When you choose a second widget, Niagara will ask if you wish to create a stack. Faucet the button to substantiate, and increase: Your first official Android widget stack is alive and properly, and all you have gotta do is swipe your finger horizontally on that space of the display to discover it.
If you wish to add one other widget into the combo, observe those self same steps once more and choose whichever widget your Android-adoring coronary heart needs. I might recommend two or three widgets because the optimum quantity, as that retains every little thing not more than a single swipe away and avoids creating any counterproductive litter.
Fairly nifty, would not ya say? Niagara Launcher is free to make use of, too, although it does require a $10-a-year (or $30 lifetime) improve to its Professional model if you wish to preserve entry to the stackable widgets and different superior choices. If all that stuff enhances your effectivity as a lot because it does mine, it is fairly simple to justify that as cash properly spent.
And, notably, it does not require any method of maddening ready or I/O-announcement lusting in any respect.
Be taught all types of off-the-beaten-path Android time-savers with my Android Intelligence e-newsletter. Three new issues to attempt each Friday!
Copyright © 2023 IDG Communications, Inc.
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