The Google App Store has thousands of Launchers. Worse, not all of them are good or worth it, what's more, we bring you the launchers that we think are interesting and bring novelty to the user. We also recommend Apolo Launcher, which we recently analyzed. But today, we bring you another quite interesting Launcher that focuses on opening apps: Lens Launcher.
With lens launcher we can access the applications by doing the magnifying glass gesture. We press and hold the screen and we go moving across the screen to choose the application. By doing this, applications they get bigger and move away as we touch it with a pressed finger.
This behavior is based on a fisheye lens algorithm (Graphical Fisheye Lens) that intelligently distorts the icon grid: the area under your finger is magnified and everything else is reduced, allowing View all apps at once without sacrificing a convenient zoom area where you can identify and click the icon you want.
Lens Launcher is also a Android Experiment Created by developer Nick Rout, it was born as an official experiment to explore new forms of interaction on Android. Over time, it has received important contributions from other developers, such as Rish Bhardwaj (@CreaRo), and its source code is available on GitHub for anyone who wants to study or modify it, reinforcing its open and experimental nature.
How Does It Work?
Must download the application on the Google Play Store. Then what we put like launcher default. As a result of this, we will notice that our applications have been added to a single desk. We have some settings within the app to further customize it. But we will comment on this later. To select apps, we can press directly or, leaving pressed, we can get closer by making a magnifying glass effect and choose in the same way.
Instead of having multiple home screens or an infinitely scrolling app drawer, Lens Launcher uses an evenly spaced grid which displays absolutely all your apps in a single view. Regardless of the screen size or number of installed applicationsThe launcher rearranges the icons so they all fit without needing to swipe.
When you keep your finger on the screen, the famous fisheye graphic lensThe area under your finger magnifies, the icons separate slightly, and they become much easier to distinguish. As you move your finger, this virtual magnifying glass moves across the grid, allowing you to... browse quickly across the entire suite of apps without losing the overall view.
This approach is inspired by the methods described by Manojit Sarkar and Marc H. Brown in their work on Graphical Fisheye ViewsThe idea is to highlight an area of ​​interest (where your finger is) while keeping the rest of the context visible but reduced, something that fits perfectly with a minimalist application launcher.
What Lens Launcher offers us
lens launcher offers us the possibility to customize our launcher to taste. Within your settings, we can customize the size of the icons, the way we want them to appear, the wallpaper, the transparency’s most emblematic landmarks, the theme’s most emblematic landmarks, the color, the modes ... It is very customizable in this sense. However, when using the launcher on a day-to-day basis, only a desktop with apps appears, we have nothing else.
The evenly spaced grid can be adjusted by modifying parameters such as the icon density or the distance between them, so you can prioritize a view with many small icons or a slightly cleaner grid with slightly larger icons, while maintaining the philosophy of having everything on one screen.
The lens animation is also configurable: you can control the intensity of distortionThis includes the speed at which the icons enlarge and the behavior of the transition between the normal and enlarged states. In this way, the magnifying effect adapts to your preferences, whether you prefer a smoother animation or a more immediate reaction to finger movement.
Another interesting point is that the app allows you to change the wallpaper, apply different levels of opacity and choose from several color themesThis allows the launcher to integrate seamlessly with the rest of your device's aesthetics. All of this is achieved without introducing widgets or additional screens, staying true to a philosophy of extreme minimalism.
Lens Launcher is available for download Delivery to Italy takes one or two business days on Google Play and, something very noteworthy, does not include adsThis makes it especially appealing to those seeking a clean environment, free from commercial distractions and intrusive notifications. Furthermore, for advanced users and developers, the source code It can be viewed in their GitHub repository, making it easy to learn how the fisheye lens is implemented or even create custom variations.
Perhaps with so much launcher, customization, roms and other aspects, we need apps that simplify our interaction with the operating system. And this launcher is proof of this trend towards the simple, the simple, the easy and the Minimalist above all.
If we think about it, in the end, we really only used a few apps. And, when push comes to shove, when we want to take a photo, a plane ticket, consult something ... we want the apps to be presented to us easily. We do not want to search for apps on a daily basis by means of swipes or keystrokes. We want it clear and simple. And the truth is that Android, in its latest versions, and more with Android 9.0 Pie, it is more than succeeding. However, this only happens with stock Android, as they still exist. Makers Layers that they are not useful, and that from the amount of options they have, they overwhelm the user. For all this, there are launchers, they are so famous and that is why there are thousands of them in the Google Play Store.
In this context, Lens Launcher fits especially well on devices where the manufacturer's skin adds Too many screens, menus, and effectsBy replacing the traditional launcher with this fisheye lens grid, your daily interaction is reduced to a single gesture: Press and hold, scroll and releaseThere's no need to remember which page each icon is on or open an additional application drawer.
Another clear advantage is that, by not integrating widgets or complicated sections, Lens Launcher consumes very few resources compared to other launchers filled with heavy animations. This can help both in modest devices that need to save memory, as in powerful mobile phones whose users want an extremely agile and direct experience.
For those who value control, the fact that it's based on a documented algorithm and that its code is open source is a plus: you know that behind the visual effect there's a solid technical basebacked by academic work, and not just flashy animation lacking substance. That's why it was selected as Featured project within Android experimentsdemonstrating a different way of understanding how to organize and launch apps on Google's operating system.
Lens Launcher has become an example of how a launcher can be innovative and radically simple At the same time: it completely changes the way all applications are displayed, but minimizes the number of items on screen and the actions needed to open what you need.