As promised, or forewarned, Chris Lacy’s Action Launcher 3 has just been pushed to Google Play Store. Claimed to be more than just a simple “Action Launcher 2 with Material Design”, this version is said to be a complete re-write and re-design, but still with the core features that have drawn users to it. It is, however, not without controversy, especially surrounding the new and perhaps slightly confusing pricing scheme that have also drawn a bit of ire against the developer.
Despite claiming to be more than just about looks, one of the most striking changes to Action Launcher 3 is indeed its looks. Aside from adopting the Material Design guidelines, one of the highlights of this release is Quicktheme. This feature dynamically changes the color scheme of Action Launcher depending on the wallpaper you are actually using to better match the overall look of screen. It even works with Muzei’s dynamically changing wallpapers, dynamically also changing the colors for each new one. Of course, users can override that behavior and set their own preferred colors.
Other than that, you get all the same features that you might have loved about Action Launcher. This includes Covers, which lets you assign actions or a folder of icons on a single app shortcut, swiping to reveal the hidden feature and tapping to simply take you to the app itself. There’s also Shutters, which is almost the same but lets you embed widgets instead of folders. Unfortunately, there are some features that actually didn’t make it to this release, and might actually never be ported. One of these is 1-swipe and it’s accompanying feature, Quickpage. These are unlikely to return given how much Android has changed underneath.
While those might be some pretty nice changes, it might not be enough to sway some users who have been rather disillusioned about Lacy’s announcement of pricing changes. That said, the developer listened to the comments a bit and clarified the pricing scheme a bit. Moving forward, the free version, with IAP, of Action Launcher will only be available as Action Launcher 3. Those who want to use Action Launcher 2 will have to make a $3.99 purchase for the Action Launcher Pro app (unless they already purchased it before). Given the changes and some missing features above, there might be some who will prefer to stay on that version.
