So I’ve decided to change the launcher on my phone. As much as I like the stock Faiphone launcher, I just want to have a fresh look on my phone now and a launcher that is slightly more effective on hardware resources. I’ve installed the Smart Launcher 2, tried it out for a few days, and I like it very much. However, I don’t really want apps I don’t use on my phone, so I’m thinking about just removing the stock launcher from my system.
So my question is what to expect if I do? Is it going to break anything important on my phone? And will I be able to reinstall it if things go haywire from removing it (besides the obvious of not having a fallback if my new launcher stops working)?
I don’t think you can.
If you goto app info (e.g. for the your apps widget) you’ll see that the “app” is actually not called “fairphone launcher” but “fairphone os” and you can’t just uninstall the operating system. you can only replace it with the stock android os through the updater app.
Even though it’s called “Fairphone OS”, it is the launcher. You can uninstall and reinstall it as you wish. The corresponding package is named FairPhoneHome.apk.
My advice would be not to uninstall the launcher and here is why - people have experienced issues updating to the latest versions of Fairphone OS while other launchers are active on their phone (info on other topics in the forum).
The launcher won’t cause you any problems being installed and it’s not very large so isn’t taking up very much memory on the phone. The latest v1.8.2 which is in beta at the mo has a choice between the old and new version of the Fairphone Launcher, and I suspect if you update you’ll find yourself having to uninstall again, even if you don’t experience problems during the update process.
That said, I haven’t used the launcher you’re referring to and I don’t know whether problems will occur because of the change - so just be ready to have to take corrective action in case of problems
I am using the Smart Launcher 2 since the first Day I had my Fairphone FP1U in Summer 2014.
It worked well under Fairphone os 1.6 and works well under Fairphone OS 1.8 (downloaded from the Support Page).
It sems that this Update isnt so bad with the SM Launcher 2.
Important is to move the new Launcher to the System Apps and to remove the Fairphone Launcher with a Tool like SystemAppMover.
