Apex Launcher updated - vertical scrolling finally returns to the ICS launcher

[Guest PaulOBrien]

Now, don't get me wrong, I love Ice Cream Sandwich and all the lovely improvements it brings... but one thing that's been driving me nuts is the launcher.

The one thing I really liked about stock launchers of old (and most of the third party launchers) is that one big flick could take you from top to bottom even if you had a ton of apps installed (which I do). Unfortunately, Ice Cream Sandwich did away with this with its 'horizontal cards' layout. I found myself having to flip through pages and pages of cards to get to the application I wanted (in fact, I found myself working out where the application I wanted came in the alphabet and determining if clicking 'Widgets' and flicking back was quicker)!

Enter Apex Launcher.

Apex Launcher is a customised version of the Ice Cream Sandwich launcher, much like Nova Launcher that I was using previously. Features added in the launcher (which is for Android 4.0 upwards of course) include...

• Custom number of homescreens and homescreen grid size

• Infinite & elastic scrolling (homescreen and drawer)

• Transition effects (homescreen and drawer)

• Customizable scrolling indicator (homescreen and drawer)

• Homescreen gestures (pinch, swipe up/down)

• Enable/Disable auto-rotation

• Enable/Disable wallpaper scrolling

• Show/Hide persistent search bar

• Show/Hide notification bar

• Show/Hide icon labels (homescreen and drawer)

• Lock/Unlock desktop

• All/Downloaded/Widgets tabs in drawer

• Drawer apps sorting (title, install date, mostly used)

• Add widgets from drawer (must install as system app) or system picker

• Resize any widget

• Backup/Restore settings and data

...and, in a recent release, a vertical scrolling app drawer! Hurrah! :)

If you're running ICS it's well worth a try (especially as it's free)! The application isn't available in the Market as yet (it's currently still in a pre-release state), and is a direct APK download with a support topic at XDA-Developers.

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[Guest adam1000rr]

Love it! Thanks for the tip..

I just downloaded it from the Play Store ;)