New to Fairphone 4, few questions!

Help Fairphone 4
1

Hey

So, I see that the phone isnt using the stock android launcher… a few customization options are missing.

Firstly, I’d like to remove the Google search bar… I can not find the setting anywhere to do it.
Second, I’d like to create an additional home screen to the LEFT of my main screen. I can neither do that, not set a different home screen as the MAIN screen. How?

To get around all of this I considered a different launcher, and found a wiki forum post.
Trebuchet from LineageOS sounds good, but the link doesnt work. Where can I find it?
Can I install the stock Android Launcher?
Or is Fairphone looking to update their Launcher with some added needed functionality?

2

Welcome to the Fairphone community.

Fairphone is using stock Android, that is the reason why you can’t find those settings. Which phone did you use before?

For the search bar, there is a long thread already, with some alternative launcher recommendations:

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Oh I see, so it -is- stock android after all…
I’ve used LineageOS for quite a while, and when the S5 quit on me (sudden death syndrome) I’ve been using a Huawei for the past (almost) 6 years.

4

Well, Nova launcher seems to be alright and looking good so far. Allows me to made the adjustments I like to make, and it removes the Google search bar on the bottom. Fairphone could work on that and allow for more modifications with their launcher.

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5

I guess they can’t, they might loose the Google certification.

6

You can install lineageos on it if it suits you better.

7

Fairphone 4 is not officially supported yet by them, and neither is TWRP.

I’ve read in another thread that supposedly Lineage is working on it, but… Yea.

Maybe with Android 12 and 13 there will be some positive changes to the stock launcher. Fairphone has in their FAQ that android 12 will be released in 2022. Seeing as this year is almost done with, I don’t think it’s gonna happen.

8

I still think it will happen, we have a few weeks left in 2022 and we haven’t seen an update quite a long time ago…

9

I hope so. Otherwise I would be really mad that they just randomly skipped a security update, especially after I’ve been praising them :smiley:.

You can also try Lawnchair, it’s open-source. But I personally got used to the stock launcher (Quickstep) as I’ve already been using it for some time prior to owning FP4.

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10

I wouldn’t get my hopes up.
The search bar is probably a requirement to get it certified by Google, unlikely they’ll add an option to disable it.
Left of the main home screen is where that full screen Google widget lives (don’t remember what it’s called), unlikely you’ll get an option to add a screen left of the main one, wouldn’t want to introduce a barrier to quickly access that :smirk:

More customizeability also very unlikely, Google ships almost all the new features only with the Pixel launcher, which, you guessed it, is exclusive to Pixels.

11

I did try Lawnchair but ran into similar limitations as with Quickstep.

12

Yea, not being able to arrange things the way I want and, especially, being able to change which one the home screen is, is a bit of a deal breaker.

Nova launcher has been working well for me thus far, so I’m happy.

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