Nova Launcher – one of the most popular android launcher replacement apps – has released an update to their beta version to 4.1.0 beta 1, in this update – along with some other changes – is the inclusion of the New Colourful (and grey scale version) Google logo for the persistent search bar, ‘Icon Normalisation’ and runtime permissions ready for Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
Following Google’s update to their company logo recently they started rolling out the new look to various corners of their ecosystem. One of the more polarising changes – apart from the logo itself – has been the inclusion of colour on the Android persistent search bar. Well if you on the for side of the debate and you’re a Nova user now you’re in luck
The next feature is for those who have noticed, and been bothered by, the varying sizes of icons in your app drawer. Nova has introduced an option to ‘Normalize icon size’ using a simple toggle in the ‘Look & Feel’ tab in settings.
With normalisation toggled on Nova Launcher will analyze all of the app icons on your device and attempt to ‘correct’ them so they are all of similar size and proportion. If you look at the images, the left-hand image is before normalization was turned on, and the right after. You should notice that size of some of the apps has been adjusted to create a more uniform look and feel to the icons.
Finally, Nova has also introduced the ‘Runtime permissions on Marshmallow’ which will obviously take advantage of the scalable permsissions in the next update to Android.
If you’re a Nova Launcher user and like the look of any of these new options – remember they are options – and you’re on the beta channel head on over to the Playstore and grab the latest update. If you’re not on the Beta channel, hold on, updates for the open version typically aren’t far behind.
If you haven’t tried Nova Launcher and wanted to give it a go hit the link below. (The basic version is free however the ‘Prime’ version is $5.99, and well worth it IMHO)
Are you a Nova Launcher user who was waiting on the new logo to hit your device? Let us know in the comments.
Great launcher, really i like it this great feature..
Agreed the icon normalisation is good. I wonder if Nova will include automatic categorisation/grouping of apps like some of the other launchers around.
as long as its an option, that’s a feature many wouldn’t like
Yes add an option for creating folders or tabs in the app draw and then adding them to home screens .
Icon size normalisation is great. It’s always bugged me how much icons vary in size (including Google apps).This does a lot to make things look nicer (although of course, it’s not perfect).