In the second half of 2016, Google officially ended the Nexus series and turned its own son into the Pixel today. In addition to setting a benchmark in hardware, another important task of Pixel is to better integrate software into hardware and bring a better experience to Android. As a result, the Pixel Launcher, a new starter, was born.

Of course, thanks to the openness of Android, although the Pixel Launcher is exclusive to its own son, it does not prevent the emergence of a large number of third-party Pixel Launchers. Among them, the most appreciated one is Lawnchair, which keeps the simplicity of the Pixel Launcher and enriches and improves its functions. Unfortunately, it followed Pixel 2 to release the updated Pixel Launcher, and Lawnchair did not follow up in time. But it's never too late for good things. Lawnchair V2 finally comes.

P. S. Lawnchair V2 is temporarily in the internal testing stage and has not been launched in the Play Store and other markets. It can be launched in its official Telegram Get a download link.  

Close to the appearance of Android P

Taking the evolution route of Pixel Launcher as a reference, Lawnchair V2 should be modified on the basis of Pixel 2, but Google has released the latest developer preview version of Android P, so Lawnchair V2 can be said to be closer to the official version of Android P in appearance, which can be regarded as one of the advantages of third-party Pixel Launcher.

Lawnchair V2 is similar to the new Android P in that it uses rounded transitions in many details, such as the border of the Dock column, the Search Bar of the drawer, etc., which is consistent with the current trend shown by Google. The small arrows on the Pixel 2 Dock bar and the animation of sliding transition have also been deleted, making the new style more close to Android P and meeting the needs of Lawnchair target groups.

Different styles of At a glance

On the latest Pixel Launcher, at a glance, the once exclusive widget, is the extravagant hope of many people (later, it was adapted to non Pixel models with the update of Google App). Developers have carried forward the "tradition" and made many adaptations on Lawnchair V2. In addition to the default style, they have also added many time displays required by users; If both are not suitable for taste, Lawnchair V2 retains the original Pixel Launcher style, which can meet different needs.

Enough but not fancy customization

Of course, as a third-party initiator, compared with Pixel Launcher's shortcomings in customization, Lawnchair will certainly be supplemented, but as in earlier versions, Lawnchair V2 can be said to be quite restrained in this regard. It does not have a large number of customized projects like Nova or Action Launcher, which is sufficient for ordinary users and will not cause problems.

For third-party launchers, it is basically necessary to change icons, unify the size and style of icons, arrange and layout of drawers, etc., and Lawnchair V2 naturally supports it. This time, it also adds OLED support for its own theme, which is an adaptation to the current mobile phone trend (laugh).

In addition to common function options, Lawnchair also has some slightly advanced settings. For example, the gesture operation of the main screen can quickly open the corresponding operation according to personal habits; The preferences of the initiator support local backup and restore. Users who like to struggle can also easily restore or apply them to new phones. By the way, Lawnchair is open source on github. If you have any needs and suggestions, you can give feedback to developers in a timely manner.

Still existing defects

In terms of time, Lawnchair V2 has just passed the alpha phase and entered the beta internal test. Although it has improved a lot in stability, there must be defects, such as occasional FC or mismatching of some models. The most easily found problem in daily use is estimated to be the icon.

In the figure, Lawnchair V2 is on the left and Pixel Launcher is on the right. By carefully comparing the icons of Screener and WeChat, we believe that you can see that Lawnchair V2 is not clear about the reason why it forced the icon to be a round icon, and there is a problem with the background color: the details of the original icon were lost after Screener took the color; WeChat doesn't know why the color is not green but white. The whole icon is almost unrecognizable, which can be said to be very strange.

Some users with obsessive-compulsive disorder may not accept this, but as far as the update speed of Lawnchair is concerned (once it was four or five shifts a day, but now the V2 version is almost one shift a day), this small problem should be fixed soon.

tail

Holding the Android model of Pixel series, Lawnchair V2 can be said to be a very suitable starter to experience the original. Its threshold is much lower than Nova or Action Launcher. It can be used after installation without too many settings; The function is also much better than the Pixel Launcher, which provides enough customization options. Now in the beta phase, the stability and reliability have improved a lot. If you can accept a little bug, you can still use it daily; For update controllers, the reason why they like Lawnchair may be the speed of one more every day.

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