Yeah, thanks anyway. I’m fine with it now, still would like to have an empty panel but it’ll do. I like the bigger icons too and now that we can have an indefinite number of panels. 
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Feedback:
+
- just the amount of desktops/home-screens you use (icons on two then two desktops it is).
- you can rearrange desktops by pushing the settings button so that you can decide on the start desktop you want.
- icon size. Its a better size and the amount of icons too are great.
- you can rearrange the desktops by holding on the screen edge causing unnecessary entering of that mode.
- After pressing the settings button and go into either widgets or apps you can press settings again to have the three choices, but there is no way to enter any of them (going into settings, the three choices don’t come up when pushing the settings-button. Only after entering widgets or apps). There is no use having the three options a second time - better just go back and press the settings button again.
- the recent apps widget is not very pretty. Looks like a HTML4 table.
2 Likes
I don’t mind the new look. It took me four attempts before I was able to successfully install the new update and that was a very frustrating 60 minutes. I’m used to various smartphone layouts and the new one is closer to stock Android than it was before and it’s ok. So far no major issues, and I like the fact that Bluetooth now doesn’t say it’s stopped working, but my Bluetooth widget temporarily turns wifi off which it never used to. Have had to resort to settings to turn BT off and on.The new bigger icons are ok, but why were they needed?
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I haven’t installed the update so far, because I was/am “afraid” of the new launcher. I love my phone as it has been since january and I don’t want it to look different. Wouldn’t it be possible to include the new launcher as an option that can be activated and let the old one as the default, with all its icons in their place? Please!!! I would really like to update the OS because of the security and GPS improvements, but right now I’m too lazy to get used to a new look and feel or to rebuild my dektops.
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@Jerry: yes, I have an empty homescreen - and enjoy the wallpaper + clock look while working non-virtually.
Feedback @Marco:
it is not about the launcher itself (because I luckily didn’t apply the v1.8 yet), but about the updates to v1.8+ itself:
- Please include in all further updates the possibility to still apply the UnifiedStorageUpgrade (USU)! It should NOT be neccassary to downgrade to v1.6 if I want to apply this USU later, because until now I was too afraid and did not had the time to re-set/backup ALL of my Settings and Apps! For further explanation look in this post from me!
- Provide a complete ChangeLog at the FP-Updater-App for each installable version under “more information”
- Make a pop-up with all negative results for the user, before the user can click on “install” in the FP-Updater-App! In the recent case it should look like this:
"Be aware: - 1.) all your symbols and folders at the homescreen will be lost after update to v1.8!
- 2.) After updating to v1.8 you will not be able anymore to apply the USU, exept by downgrading again to v1.6 (–> hope it will be changed in the update after the withdrawn v1.8) …
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You can install 1.8 and then install the old launcher from Google Play Store. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.lulebe.fairphone.launcher
Here is my situation with the new launcher (I do not mind the bigger icons, nor the number of homescreens):
- Somehow, my display stands out a bit over the white border on the right side, but on the left side, it is set a bit deeper (low quality production I guess…).
- I have the calendar widget using all the 4 units in width.
- I had the same widgets on the old launcher, but did not have any problems.
After applying the 1.8 update: When I now want to use the quick access drawer by swiping in from the left side (the one, where the border is higher than the display), I often move the calendar widget or change homescreen instead. It seems that the margin, in which the quick access appears, has decreased.
Can you reproduce this?
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On another note: this happened to me a couple of times throughout the day, after updating. Though it worked fine 90+% of the time. [EDIT: 50% if you click quickly after existing an app]
Do you see the white ghost-box with my messenger apps? I tried to open that folder, but this is all that happened. [EDIT: the folder is not fully unfolded, but clicking on icons does open apps] Click anywhere outside the box and it disappears. Click to open the folder again and it works fine then.
Thought you might want to know, with the new launcher and all.
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As I said already I like the bigger icons. I have only apps on my homescreens grouped by importance on the individual screens and grouped by color on each screen. I occasionally try widgets, but they don’t seem to offer a lot of value. Arranging icons by color similarity creates more visually pleasing screens and is also somewhat challenging task. I also find it is faster to locate an app since you always associate a color with an app, e.g. twitter is blue. So you only need to look in a smaller part of the screen and not check every light blue icon. I don’t have any hard facts to back this claim, but I think user studies could reveal an effect here.
Bigger icons are of course challenging users to decide upon the 20 most used apps to put on the home screen. I think there is something to be gained also in that challenge. You are going to review your priorities.
I extremely like the ability to reorder homescreens, but only discovered this through the forum. This should be better communicated.
2 Likes
Two things:
- The big icons are very blurred on my phone…?!
- When i boot the phone the launcher shows me the left panel, when I push the home-button it shows me the middle panel (of three…) In my opinion not very customer-friendly…?!
I received the e-mail telling me about the upcoming update. I was concerned about the new launcher, since I didn’t know what a launcher was (this is my first smartphone, I assumed that what I now know to be the old launcher was just the way the fairphone works, I didn’t know there could be other launchers).
I had trouble installing the google apps after updating, it took over 12 hours to end (it has been talked over on the forum since).
I hate the new launcher.
I don’t like the size of the icons.
I hate that I had 3 screen panels instead of 5 and when I deleted the most used/most recent apps panels for which I have no use, it went down to 2 panels (I saw today there was a new tutorial about that here : http://www.fairphone.com/tutorials-en/#/fairphone/fairphone/software-update/usecase/new-in-fairphone-os-1-8/3; that would have helped me not freaking out two days ago).
I hate to have shortcuts for apps and widgets by pressing the settings button. It is not logical and I prefer them on the middle button in the quick access menu. I’m afraid I will press the apps button by mistake when trying to access the settings.
I don’t see the point of being able to move through the panels when pressing the settings button since I can do that already on the home panels.
In the end I followed someone’s advice and installed the old launcher from Google play store. But every now and then my phone asks me which launcher I want to use and they both have the same icon and the same name. Can I rename one of them? (Edit by @Stefan: @mgkoeln, forward from that topic.)
I really think you should have put the new launcher in a different update so I could update the system without the launcher (and you should have communicated a lot more about the launcher).
Hi,
the two launchers you’re offered to choose between are Fairphone OS and Fairphone OS v2, right?
Choose ‘Fairphone OS’ and tap ‘Always’. Then the old launcher will run by default.
Ahould you want to change this later, go to system settings>apps, find ‘Fairphone OS’ and tap ‘Clear defaults’. When you leave the menu, the ‘choose’ box will open anew and you can switch to version 2.
3 Likes
yeah I noticed this too. After boot, it should show the actual home panel (the one you see when you press the home button).
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Might be so, but what I encountered was that after a reboot or after having the phone switched off the leftmost screen was were the new session started. And I don’t think I should have to start a new session with hitting the home button?
Since I’ve reverted to the old launcher I can’t (and won’t) check if this behaviour persists or how to change it.
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I had the same problem.
This is my first smartphone. I don’t know what a “Launcher” is. Well, I didn’t. I found out the hard way. Maybe it would have been smarter to wait a bit longer before installing, but I just trusted the FP guys…
It has already been said a few times, but I want to stress that the communication about this update was not sufficient. The new, nice tutorials didn’t really offer any information about what I could expect. If you give information, it should always be understandable for the most stupid ones who will read it. And no, I don’t think I am the most stupid person who will ever open that tutorial! 
So it was just not sufficient.
A very small suggestion to revise the launcher: As we are told the size of the icons is now standard (given by Google). But is it “standard” as well that icons have text? Why not to leave the text then it would be possible to have 6 x 4 again?
Good suggestion and this fits in with the suggestion I have already made to the Fairphone Support team - as follows:
I think something to consider as an “upgrade” to the launcher if possible is to give a settings context menu to control things like icon size, number of rows, number of screen etc etc. And then you can leave people to decide for themselves how their screens look.
If this could be implemented then another option for this could be to hide icon text. I think customisability is important as not everyone likes the same things (clearly from the number of gripes on the forum) 
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Oh - you are going now much further - a totally customizable launcher (size, icons, color, text) would be great of course but will be a very big piece of software development I only suggested to have back 6x4 
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Hi.
I’ve also had this problem when I try to use the quick access drawer. Instead of doing that, I can often end up highlighting the calendar widget and it ends up moving to a different screen. This never happened to me with Cherry.
Related to this issue is that if I want to drag an icon or widget from one screen to another, it’s much more difficult than before and I often can end up having to try and force my finger right to the edge of the screen which can lead to me dropping the icon and having to start the process again.
Hope the Fairphone Team find this helpful.
3 Likes