They say there’s no need to customise perfection, but…

Regarding the whole Android vs iPhone thing, I stay away from all the negativity and arguments. I mean, there’s no harm in making a joke from time to time, but I prefer using, trying out and enjoying the technology.

The world is extremely divided on the whole Android vs iOS thing and I can’t understand why! I mean as someone who uses both an Android and an iPhone on a daily basis, I think that both systems are perfectly capable.

With that in mind, both platforms have standout features which the other doesn’t have and in today’s blog post, I wanted to discuss one of these features.

The feature I am talking about is the ability to change launchers.

For those of you who are not familiar with Android or the concept of launchers, A launcher is an app that can change the interface on your phone as well as the way it behaves.

I’m not only talking about changing the icons here, with the help of a launcher, you can change the way your home screen looks and functions, your phone animations, the icons as well as a whole bunch of other things.

But, what’s the point?

One of the main advantages of Android over iOS is that you can heavily customise the look and feel of your phone, to make it even more personal to you.

Some might argue that there is no need to customise or personalise perfection, but what happens if you get bored of the way your phone looks?

On iOS I like how you can customise your screen with the widgets to make it more practical for you, but other than changing the wallpaper and icons, there isn’t much else you can do compared to what you can do by simply downloading a different launcher from the Google Play Store.

Downloading a new launcher can also introduce new features to your phone such as new widgets or an improved way of searching for your apps. Other examples include improved gesture controls, better navigation smart folders and more!

A different launcher can also improve your productivity. For example, you can download a minimal launcher which will stop you from getting distracted.

Some launchers are designed for specific lifestyles. For example, I used Microsoft Launcher on my previous Android work phone as it was better optimised for the Office 365 ecosystem and it had some awesome widgets.

You can even improve your device’s performance by simply changing the launcher. Now unless you are using a low-spec device, I don’t think that this applies to most mid to high-spec Android smartphones.

But if your needs are simple and you only have a basic Android phone, then sometimes changing the launcher can be extremely beneficial to the performance of your device.

Launchers are also great for when you get bored with your current phone and want to try something new, the main advantage here is that it means that you can save your hard-earned cash not having to buy a new smartphone.

Why am I bringing this up now?

As someone who uses an iPhone SE and a Google Pixel 7 Pro, my main sim is inside of my Google Pixel 7 Pro and as much as I love the Google Pixel launcher, I wanted to try something new.

So I browsed through several Android communities and even asked Twitter to see what launchers people recommend and Smart Launcher came up a lot, so I decided to try it out.

I’m happy to say that the launcher is really good! I love the look and feel of it and it came with some pretty cool-looking widgets. But most importantly of all, I like how you can customise everything to make it work better for you.

My only complaint about the launcher is that you can’t search for apps inside of the app drawer, it gives you an index mode instead. But there is a smart search feature on the home page which allows you to search for apps.

It’s a small thing really, but I think it will take me a while to get used to.

Here’s what it looks like:

Wrapping up

I know that there is a huge divide between Android and iOS users, but the ability to download a new launcher and customise your interface to such an extent is a feature only available on Android, and personally, I think it should stay that way.

It is a feature that makes Android different from iOS and therefore makes smartphones less boring. I wouldn’t want both iPhones and Android phones to have all the same features, it’s nice to have a few things different from both sides.

But as a whole, I don’t yet know if Smart Launcher is a keeper, but that’s the beauty of being able to change launchers, if it turns out I don’t like it I can either go back to the default Google Pixel Launcher (which is actually pretty good), or I can find a different one altogether.

I want to make this blog post into a place where readers can discover new launchers, so if you have a preferred launcher, please share it in the comments!