Always wanted a Google Now-flavoured Android experience? Google has now released its Google Now Launcher on the Play Store. The catch, however, is that the launcher will work only on a Nexus or Google Play edition phone or tablet running Android 4.4 KitKat. You can get the launcher from the Google Play Store.The launcher released officially by Google will give you quick access to Google Now, right on the home screen. You will only need to swipe right to enter Google Now from your first home screen and view your cards. The “always-on” voice command of Nexus 5 is not available for the Nexus 4, but you can still hit the voice icon on the persistent homescreen search bar to search or perform activities. You can also swipe up from the on-screen navigation buttons to reach Google Now.Using the voice commands, you will be able to not just access data from the Internet but you can also ask your phone to fire up apps, send a message or even play a song. The Google Now experience will also bring along full-screen viewing and larger viewing area and even the wallpaper extends across the phone.The Google Now launcher is currently limited to a few devices that includes Nexus ones and Google Play Edition devices, which is bound to make a lot of people unhappy. Earlier, the KitKat experience on these devices looked and felt slightly different from the one on Nexus 5.The opacity of the top bar, larger icons and new wallpapers and even easy accessibility to Google Now were missing from it. The official release should change this, though there’s no word on whether it will be available for other devices which are running Google Now. As you may know by now with Android KitKat, the launcher is actually a stub app within the Google Search app (better known as Google Now), which activates the launcher functionality.
Showing posts with label launcher. Show all posts
Showing posts with label launcher. Show all posts
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Posted by Arslan Ahmad on 12:24 PM
Jolla’s Sailfish OS isn’t Android – not even an Amazon-style fork – but it can run Android apps and manufacturers can put it on the same hardware they use for Android devices. So after a pretty small-scale start, what would be the smart way for the plucky Finnish mobile upstart to make sure as many people as possible play with its software?
Yup. On Friday, Jolla announced the first complete version of Sailfish OS and said users themselves would later this year be able to install it on many Android devices – according to the post-Nokia outfit, this will include “major versions of popular Samsung Galaxy, Google Nexus, and Sony Xperia .” In the meantime, Jolla will soon put a Sailfish launcher into “common Android marketplaces”, so people can get their heads around the operating system’s gesture-based user interface.
All this will take place during the first half of this year, Jolla said, noting that the full Sailfish OS should be “commercially ready for global distribution” after the beginning of March, when Sailfish OS receives its fourth significant update.The company also revealed partnerships with other big hitters from Finland: Rovio, for an Angry Birds-themed “The Other Half” smart cover, and security firm F-Secure, for free cloud storage. Jolla will also work with Finnish IT consultancy Tieto to offer integration services to manufacturers that want to make Sailfish OS phones.
According to Jolla COO and co-founder Marc Dillon:
“We’ve been working hard together with our user community to make the user experience of the Jolla smartphone and Sailfish OS effortless and distinct. We believe that Jolla now offers a truly viable option for all smartphone users. Naturally we are not stopping here, as we continue to provide monthly software updates to Jolla devices and Sailfish OS.”
Sailfish OS users will be able to install “their preferred Android app store”, Dillon added. Jolla has previously announced a partnership with Yandex to see the Russian web giant’s Android app store preinstalled on Jolla devices — as for the official Google Play Store, a Jolla spokesman told me that “technically it is possible to download it to the Jolla smartphone, but we don’t have any agreements in place currently with Google.” Sailfish OS is open source, and the community has already made native apps for Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and Foursquare.How likely is it that Android users will go Sailfish? Jolla is hopeful: chairman Antti Saarnio said in Friday’s statement that there are about a billion Android users out there. “Last year in China alone, about 100 million devices were re-flashed after the purchase with a new operating system. This approach allows Sailfish OS to scale into volume fast without limitations,” he noted.
“Just in a few months [since launch, presumably] we have shown how fast an open operating system can develop compared to closed ecosystems,” Saarnio continued. “It’s time for free choice instead of closed walled gardens.”
This article was updated at 3.30am PT to include extra detail about the possibility of using the Google Play Store on a Jolla phone.
Friday, February 21, 2014
Posted by Arslan Ahmad on 5:36 AM
From March those of you with Android handsets – and there’s quite a lot of you out there, according to recent stats – will be able to download and install the SailfishOS “experience” on your smartphone. What you’re downloading isn’t the OS per se – it’s more like a launcher. But once installed users will get the full SailfishOS experience including support for platform-native apps, its gesture-based UX and regular updates.SailfishOS is an open-source platform that began life in Finland. The first handsets running SailfishOS are now commercially available inside Europe, although we’ve yet to see any of them in action in the UK.
“The world’s first Jolla phones were sold to mobile operator DNA’s customers in Finland in late November last year. After the limited availability sales start of Jolla smartphones with Sailfish OS beta, Jolla has released three significant software updates. The fourth update will be released at the beginning of March, after which the software will be commercially ready for global distribution,” said Jolla in a statement to the press. SailfishOS supports Android applications, as well as content developed specially for the platform. Jolla has yet to confirm just how many Android applications its platform supports, but insists the “availability and interoperability of Android apps in Sailfish OS has increased greatly” – apparently it’s hundreds of thousands.
“We’re very excited to announce this. We’ve been working hard together with our user community to make the user experience of the Jolla smartphone and Sailfish OS effortless and distinct. We believe that Jolla now offers a truly viable option for all smartphone users. Naturally we are not stopping here, as we continue to provide monthly software updates to Jolla devices and Sailfish OS,” says Marc Dillon, Co-Founder and COO of Jolla.
Posted by Arslan Ahmad on 5:14 AM
There's a certain glamor to new mobile platforms that offer something different from established players, but nobody wants to spend hundreds on a new device just for a dabble. For those intrigued by the MeeGo-derived Sailfish OS specifically, Jolla hopes to lead you into temptation soon with a launcher for Android that mimics the Sailfish UI. Also during the first half of this year, Jolla plans to offer full firmware downloads for your handsets if you want to end it with Android altogether. The community around open-source Sailfish has successfully ported the OS to a number of devices, but we believe a formal and user-friendly method of distribution is what's being suggested here. We can picture the Jerry Springer episode already. The launcher was just a "friend," you see, until the firmware moved in and Android became but a homeless ROM. But... who's the father?
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