Despite its failure to capture a significant market share, I really enjoyed the metro UI on windows phone and tablet. One UI on my Samsung was getting stale and has a nearly unusable apps drawer, and standard Android notifications are nagging and ungainly.
So I went looking for launchers and icons to get my live tiles back, and what do you know, these are available and they rule. Sharing here so others can try, plus a killer home screen background for good measure.
Apps: SquareHome and WHicons
Squarehome is surprisingly thorough in replicating live tile functions - all apps which are capable of image notifications will display on the home screen with a pic and summary/text right on the icon. You can dismiss with a long press, and exclude any apps from notifications that you prefer.
The consequence of this is that you don’t need to use the android notification list at all if you don’t want, and by getting selective you can avoid the bombarding nature of android style alerts. I actually find myself checking the apps LESS, and I consider it a good thing.
The launcher also gives you some interesting options for hiding the ever-present android interface: you can hide the top bar while on the home screen(s), as well as the nav buttons. You can enable scrolling instead of paging for your home. There are built-in shortcuts to storage, settings pages and configurables (silent mode, wifi etc).
Tile sizes are fully customizable. Included widgets are compatible with the major productivity suites. (Switched to outlook as you might imagine). Most users suggest using WHicons for the right look, which has a few thousand icons that automatically apply to the appropriate app.
App drawer has a list function if you hate the Samsung UI app moshpit. And I do. It also has a full suite of software and hardware shortcuts for things like ‘activate flashlight’ or ‘load a file using this application’.
Spent a few days fiddling, but I couldn’t be happier with it now.
The background is by u/jmlan
It’s been a hot minute since I’ve used Android but that looks very… Busy. I’m glad it’s working for you though, even with Android I didn’t go crazy with widgets unless I was rooted with adjustments. I do love quick action shortcuts though, glad when iOS added their version of “if this then that”. Definitely missed that the most
It’s definitely not for everyone! I like being able to group functions by size and position, vs just a bunch of app bubbles, and the cubist look is oddly satisfying.
It’s useful for me to get the whole picture, or whip open a productivity app, in one tap or swipe, so I can get back to whatever else is happening. So, on a 6.2in, everything is very readable.
This crap is super messy! Fuck that.
I mean, it’s not my cup of tea but if you’re really into the Windows phone this doesn’t look too far off. Especially if it has live tiles, it can look messy but have a ton of info without having to open the app.
A couple notes on your design. I think it’s a really great step in what could be a really slick skin, my only major gripe is the inconsistency in what you are doing.
I hope this doesn’t come off as being negative or not-picky, but a lot of the elements in your design are clean, but they aren’t completely cohesive.
First thing is padding and spacing. One thing that is really throwing me off is the inconsistent spacing for your text and iconography. Your text labels for each major section are great, but they should be given the same spacing as the icons on the screen. It’s causing my eye to dart around rather than follow the flow of your screen. This also is the case with your week calendar widget, if you moved those bars and days over a bit to the left to be in line with the rest of your design it would be a lot more cohesive.
Almost all of the “problems” that I see with the design could be fixed by building out a grid system and aligning all your objects to it. If you check out the metro design system windows still uses, icons and type all have specific rules for where they go and how they behave. Try to follow those rules and it will definitely improve.
Second and much smaller is a lack of hierarchy. I am not sure what I should be looking at first when I see this. However, because this is a phone screen, it might be very readable for you. I think taking advantage of accent colours would draw your eye to your most used apps and make them easier to tap onto. I think adding a splash of colour or toning to each square would give it a bit more clear sense of what everything goes. iMessage bubbles do this, the colour becomes less saturated the further away the message is from the keyboard, this is a really subtle way of drawing your eye to where the keyboard is.
I think this design is a really good start, but I think with some tweaking, this will be excellent. I would love to see a version 1.1!
I instinctively swiped left to pull up the app list. I miss my Windows Phones. I died hard on the platform. I was the first in my state to own a WP7. And I clung to win phone 10 until my last one broke and there were no new models to get. I really wanted the platform to succeed. But MS I think had burnt way too much mindshare and it has been so hard for it to cling that back.
I really like the Subnautica background and really dislike that icon layout. It’s way too busy for me.
I love square home, here’s mine:
Older screenshots because I’d have to censor the calendar and the city again and I am lazy.
I still believe Microsoft rolled over too easy on their phone OS. They should have dug in until they were competitive like they did with the gaming market.
Thank you for this!
10 years on and I still cannot forgive Microsoft for getting out of mobile market. I was at my most productive and efficient on Samsung Ativ S, then various Lumias until they pulled the plug.
The amount of spyware installed on this phone is concerning
I gave this a crack and I am loving it so far. Thanks for the post.
As a full-time linux user since 2005 and a guy who swears every time he has to use a windows machine now, the Windows phone was actually really good. It had very few apps available and it certainly never took off commercially, but my girlfriend had one back in the day and it was a surprisingly nice piece of work.
I have no doubts that if it had gained traction and still been around today that it would be absolutely unusable.
I miss windows phone too! The Nokias were the first smartphones I could recommend to elderly relatives. Might give SquareHome a try for old times sake.
Right now I’m running a very clean Niagara setup. Looks great on the Xperia 1 III amoled.
I really loved Windows Phone. I loved the tiles, the App List, the animations…
After switching to Android, I gave Square Home a try and used it some months. Then I tried Nova and was happy for some years. It had a lot of features that I enjoyed more. Now I use Niagara. And I am as happy with this launcher, as I was with my Windows Phones.
Isn’t it great that anybody can use the interface, he or she wants? At least on Android.
Ahh windows phone. I had a Nokia with windows phone. I really wanted that tiny one took, the one that failed immediately. That’s why I had a few Palm phones that ended up being my favorites given that I adored my old Palm pilot
I’m definitely going to give this a try. People keep talking about the windows phone interface to this day, so it must be worth a look.
Fellow Ex-Windows Phone user who misses the UI. I’ve always used Launcher 10 to emulate the Windows Phone experience. Works quite good but sadly it’s a bit buggy on my OnePlus 6. Tends to crash and it will not always show all the apps in the app list.
But this looks good! I’ll definitely give this a try.
