Yesterday we posted that Action Launcher 3.8 would be arriving today with Google Now integration for rooted users, and it’s arrived right on schedule. Alongside the integration of Google Now are a heap of other fixes, features and overall improvements to what is now a very popular launcher.
Firstly, as Dan reported yesterday, the Google Now integration requires root access as the app needs to be converted into a system app for this is work. Not only that but if you choose to use it then you give up the quick drawer. You can have one or the other but not both. Hopefully Google will open up the API for Google Now integration sometime to allow developers to integrate it properly without the requirement of root access.
The list of other additions is quite extensive and I’m not going to list them all here but developer Chris Lacy has listed them all over on Google+. He stated that:
The main focus of this release was to upgrade the base code to Marshmallow’s Launcher3 code. By doing so, Action Launcher gained notable usability enhancements including the addition of fast scroll in the All Apps drawer, a much improved widget picker, infinite paged folders and more, as well getting the code in a place where updating to future versions of Launcher3 should occur much faster.
This update also contains another 10 highly requested settings/features/tweaks, in addition to a host of bug fixes, optimizations and improvements in memory usage.
Notable additions are:
- Update base code to Android 6.0.1’s Launcher3 code. Notable usability enhancements include the addition of fast scroll in the All Apps drawer, a much improved widget picker and infinite paged folders and more. This base code upgrade also sees a year’s worth of Google’s bug and stability and performance fixes.
- Can select pure black color via Quicktheme.
- When dragging existing Home screen items, display Edit and Uninstall shortcuts.
- Option for enabling dark icons on the status bar (Settings -> Display -> Dark status bar icons).
Many of these new features require Android 6.0 and above. Along with these new features Chris has also reduced the app’s memory usage which will help the speed of the entire device. The stability of the app has also been greatly improved.
If you are interested in trying this out head on over to Google Play and check it out. Remember, in doing so you are supporting an independent AUSTRALIAN developer.
It’s good to see Chris continuing to improve Action Launcher 3. I for one am willing to give this a shot now with the Google Now integration. How about you?
I love the quickdrawer. Not sure whether I would give it up to get Google Now. I’m playing around with it to see if I can get use to it but atm quickdrawer is winning.
Some how google now is not working for me. I am on rooted Nexus 6.
Action Launcher also needs to be a system app. So use something like titanium backup to convert it.