The developing team, Team Syndicate, has released an app into the market called ICS Launcher. It is designed to not only offer the look but also the feel of Ice Cream Sandwich. I can honestly say that if we had not seen the whole ICS demo and OS up and running, this launcher would have been doubly amazing compared to how you might view it today. It is of course themed to match ICS with all the blue glory that we have all grown to love. It includes ICS style Google Search bar, Analog clock, and 9 wallpapers. You see the soft touch buttons at the bottom of the screen? Ya, those actually function, they aren’t just there for looks And they stay put when you open your app drawer. Pretty nifty.
One thing that makes this Launcher stand out is definitely the launcher dock. Located at the bottom of the screen are 4 icons. As you scroll left and right those icons move across the screen. Cool right? Well, it gets better. If you go to any given screen you can remove any or all four icons and replace them with the icons of your choosing. When you change screens they stay on the screen you left them on. This allows you to essentially have a scrolling dock bar with various apps available at the bottom of each screen. Offing you a very unique user experience.
Take a look below at the short little, boring, video I did using Screencaster of this launcher in action. I think you might be pleasantly surprised.
Application: ICS Launcher
Developer: Team Syndicate
Cost: FREE
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Eew, the way the 4 icons change between screens is one of the big reasons I removed this launcher very quickly. It is also possible with this setup to “dock” an icon underneath the app drawer soft key. This icon is impossible to remove because there is no way to select it. There was also no way to hide the soft buttons for home, etc. This made them a little redundant on my Nexus S.
I did that on accident. I was able to remove it by holding the edge of the icon next to the app drawer key. Stupid, but worked. I kinda like the scrolling dock bar. You can leave call and SMS on all screens and add just variety to the others. I have screens set for a certain purpose by default, like news and camera/video and gallery with pic frame etc.. all comes down to preference. Thanks for the comment though. I should have mentioned that issue
Maybe it’ll get better, but I don’t see this as a replacement for ADW, Launcher Pro, or Go Launcher any time soon. This is a quickly thrown together launcher to capture the excitement of ICS, and admittedly I fell into that trap too, but once ICS source is released, this will quickly be forgotten.
Same exact reason I removed and same exact thing happened to me. Cool, but not made for phones with hard keys.
He is actually working on a complete rebuild of this launcher and sources close to me that it should be released tonight or early in the morning http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1268003 and read through the last 20 pages.
THIS IS SIIIIIIIIIIIICKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK <3 I was going crazy, not being able to get this on phone. This is the fastest and smoothly done I have ever seen in my android life!