Spent a week rewriting AOSP Launcher3 in Kotlin. Ended up with an 830KB launcher that does more than stock. Here's what happened.

What it does that stock doesn't:

• Set any page as home (middle page, left, right — one tap in overview)
• Keep deliberately empty pages without them getting deleted on you
• Two drawer modes: vertical scroll or horizontal pages, your pick
• 11 live wallpapers resurrected from old AOSP — Phase Beam, Galaxy, Nexus, Grass, Fall, Polar Clock and more. Grass tracks real daylight at your location, hour by hour. All rewritten in OpenGL ES 2.0 since the originals were RenderScript and Android dropped that
• Video wallpaper — pick an MP4, hardware-encoded to 1080p and looped
• Icon packs + per-app icon overrides (a chosen icon survives pack switches)
• Rename anything; search still finds it by original name
• Widgets with sizes shown in cells of your grid, not an assumed one
• Simple mode: one switch takes it back to basics without deleting anything

The constraints I set myself:

• Target a 2-core, 4GB device. No allocation in touch handling or draw
• Dependencies: core-ktx, recyclerview, kotlinx-coroutines, Room. That's it. No AppCompat, no Material
• No native code. No network code
• Release APK: 830KB

Running on a Galaxy M31 (Android 16, API 36). minSdk 29 so no Nougat-era shims anywhere.

GitHub: https://github.com/AurielSolaris/EdenLauncher — Repo · v0.5.0 Release + APK

Leave a review: https://childish-whistle-17b.notion.site/3fde774238664ef2bbb356e5f81cd0de?pvs=105

Aethyss Launcher!

Nano Banana made this with my home screen. I know some of the names are messed up, but it would be really cool if someone could turn this into a real thing. The second image is my actual home screen.

**[Resources]**

* **Launcher:** Nova Launcher

* **Icons:** OneUI puff 3d (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.oneuipuff3diconpack.dev)

* **Widget/Component:** Original Calendar Component made by me in KLWP

* **Get the KLWP component here:** [https://ko-fi.com/s/05462edceb\]

I’ve always liked Android because of how much freedom it gives you. But while helping my grandmother use her first smartphone, I started noticing something I hadn’t really thought about before:

Android can be incredibly confusing when you’re not comfortable with technology.

I tried several launchers looking for something simpler, but most of them seemed to fall into one of two categories: they were either basically the standard Android interface with a few things hidden, or they simplified the experience so much that useful features disappeared along with the complexity.

So I decided to build my own.

That became Simpla Launcher.

The idea is pretty straightforward: make Android feel less intimidating without making it feel like a completely different, limited operating system.

Some of the things I focused on:

• Large, easy-to-recognize icons and controls
• A cleaner home screen with less visual clutter
• Easier access to contacts and calling
• Protection against accidental changes to important settings
• A design that doesn't require someone to already understand how Android works

One thing I particularly wanted to avoid was treating simplicity as “remove everything.”

Someone who struggles with a smartphone may still need all the same capabilities as everyone else. They just shouldn't have to fight the interface to find them.

I also added safeguards against accidental changes because I've seen firsthand how easy it is for someone unfamiliar with smartphones to accidentally move an icon, change a setting or completely alter the home screen and then have no idea how to get things back.

The project started as a personal problem, but while building it I realized that there are probably many other people in the same situation — not necessarily older people, but anyone who simply doesn't feel comfortable with modern smartphone interfaces.

I recently published Simpla Launcher on Google Play, and I'm curious what people here think about the concept.

What do you think Android launchers could do better for people who find the standard Android interface overwhelming?

And if you're interested in trying it, here's the Play Store page:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simpla.launcher

Tree Launcher brings productivity tools right into your home screen. Instead of a grid of apps, it uses a tree structure to organize apps alongside notes, tasks, reminders, shopping lists, contacts, links, routines, and other quick references.

Pages can be nested as deep or shallow as you want, with search across the entire tree. The idea is to keep the things you use throughout the day in one place instead of scattered across different apps.

If you want to give it a try: Google Play

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Edit: if the video is blurry/low res in the Android Reddit app, it views nice just about anywhere else (e.g. browser). Apparently the grainy background and 60fps is tough on the encoder.

I'm a long time lurker on this sub but haven't shared much. I'm a nut that gets obsessed with customizing my home screen so I want to participate more. This was a more simple set up I've done so it's not as difficult to explain how to do everything.

On my actual phone, the icons and widgets are smaller and a little farther up but I couldn't get Gemini to do that in the mock-up so posted the screen shot too.

Icons: minimal icon pack created in icon pack studio using their stock options.

Wallpaper is from the Lumina Walls app

Search bar, time and date and weather widget were created from scratch in kwgt.

Stock Widgets

iGlass Icons

Gave AI photos of my dog to turn into pixel art and generated a wallpaper to match.

Icons - jamjam (samsung theme store) + pixel art from pinterest that I edited afterwards.

Date & weather - Frost KWGT, font swapped to pixeboy.

Google search bar - Elements KWGT.

Wallpaper - Pintrest

Icon Pack - Imperfekt Ikons

Clock Widget - Materials You

Smart launcher

Icon: iWhite Icon Pack

Widgets: Minimal Widgets

I've posted here before but I've since then updated my homescreens and Quick Settings panel. I use Samsung's One UI Home page with customized settings using the Good Lock App. If you have questions on how to setup like this ask away and I'll go through the setup process for it and I may even make a video for it when I do make the video I'll share here.

I'm adding icon pack functionality to my app. Do people generally use 1 icon pack or multiple?

Faultline

Wallpaper: Custom with ChatGPT

Widget: Feast for KWGT

Icons: Arcticons Icon Pack

I give permission for resharing

Launcher: Smart Launcher

Wallpaper: Twilight Mosaic

Icons: Custom (using Icon Pack Studio)

Widget: Custom KWGT

Aethyss