A while back, Lifehacker (I think) had a post about an Android homescreen replacement called LauncherPro.  It has a variety of customizations that aren’t available on a stock Android 2.1 phone, some of which don’t exist even in 2.2 and beyond (For example, icon-label hiding).  Two versions exist; A free, but limited version and “LauncherPro Plus”, which costs $2.99 via unlock-code (You download the free version from the Market, then upgrade via a menu in the software).

I have the free version installed right now, and overall it is very slick;  I’d initially installed it because I’d heard good things about it’s performance versus the standard Android launcher (those things are true, it is notably faster and smoother); A major bonus is that it looks and feels a lot like Samsung’s Galaxy interface (used, among other places, on the Epic).  One annoyance of the “not-plus” version is that it prompts you to upgrade if you accidentally hit a feature that isn’t included, like trying to add a LauncherPro-Plus Widget to one of the homescreens.

Other features I like:

• Variable homescreen count
• Multi-view homescreen selection
• Looping homescreen scrolling (scrolling left from the leftmost screen takes you to the rightmost screen) (not super-important to me, mostly, as I only have two, but it’s nice not worrying about which is which)
• Good support for regular widgets (I have apps for Gcalendar and Gmail  that I’ve used for a long while now)

Overall, it’s an excellent upgrade, especially for free.  I’d recommend it to anyone not already on HTC Sense or Samsung Galaxy.  I am well aware that this post is lacking in terms of screenshots… I’d never had screenshotting set up, and my phone is about dead for the night.

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Products, Technology by Kevin