The new Material Design of Android L definitely struck a chord with some designers and themers. We are likely to be inundated with such things in the next few months, but in the meantime, Android L features and styles are slowly making their way to ROMs and homescreen replacements, the latter of which is being headed by Nova Launcher.
Nova Launcher 3.0 actually just got out of beta last June and yet a 3.0.2 update is already in the works. While normally such maintenance releases are limited to bugfixes and whatnot, this upcoming one is a bit notable because it tries to integrate bits and pieces of the Android L developer preview into the popular launcher. If you’re not a fan of the new Material push, don’t worry, as all the new “features”, if you could call them that, are optional and not enabled by default. In fact, they are so subtle they might not be easily evident. On the other hand, if you’re actually a fan of Material Design, you might be a bit disappointed.
The Android L additions are actually confined to the App Drawer icon, the Folder Preview, and the App Animation. Each of these have to be configured separately and mixed to your heart’s content. A long press on the App Drawer icon will bring up option to edit it, where you can swap out the default one for a more L-like All White icon under the Built-in section. For the Folder Preview and the App Animation, you will have to dig into the Nova Settings app to tweak those. Again, the differences might be too subtle that you might even fail to notice the change.
Of course, there are some bug fixes and optimizations in this upcoming release. Developer Kevin Barry has even started fine tuning the launcher for Android L. If you’re eager to get your hands on this beta version of Nova Launcher 3.0.2, you can either join the Google+ community to sign up to be a tester, or you can download the APK directly from the developer.
SOURCE +Kevin Barry
Been using nova launcher for a few tears now, good stuff
Can we use this beta version of Nova Launcher 3.0.2 without losing Nova Launcher 3 that we used now with its configuration? Can we have installed both at once and switch between each other when we want? Thanks for the article!