Nova Launcher Prime

Nova Launcher is one of the first launchers made for Android 4.0

Personalizing, customizing... those words that most of the Android users love. Due to this launchers have become one of the most popular apps on the market. Actually there's an intense rivalry among them (well, among the users who are always trying to show off the way they've tuned their phone). Nova Launcher is breaking into a (so far) new niche: launchers for Android 4.0. What does it bring?

First off, custom desktop grid, scrollable dock, lots of scroll effects, infinite scroling, custom folder icons, backup/restore options and custom app icons. The layout is quite similar to the default ICS launcher. However, TeslaCoil Software, the developer of this app, has focused on making it highly customizable specially regarding layout, scrolling options and icons.

We assume that it's difficult trying to offer added-value features because the default ICS launcher is the most complete we've had so far. However, new features for both performance and scenery will be more than welcome. We've found just two catches: first off, it's quite similar to the default ICS launcher which can provoke some users doesn't feel the need to switch from one to the other. Second, it adds new features but it also change or remove others. For example, we don't really like the way it display widgets (old-style) when you select it from the app drawer top bar: there's no preview of the widgets.

Take into account though that this just made its way out and that needs to improve in some regards. We're glad to see that ICS launchers are starting to come up. It's worth to give it a go.