Fully embracing freemium

Action Launcher has long followed the “freemium” industry app trend, with the app being free to install and attempting to earn revenue once people are using the app.

But the devil is always in the details, and in truth, Action Launcher’s freemium implementation has historically been terrible. It was far too aggressive in pushing people to purchase the Plus upgrade, which turned a great many people off, and the app was barely usable for non-paying customers.

The experience of using Action Launcher has been completely revamped for v50, with the goal of making the app vastly more appealing for all users, whether they opt to buy the Plus in-app upgrade or not.

Chris Lacy on Twitter: "Spoiler alert: a key component of the forthcoming v50 update is ***massively reducing*** the number of features put behind a paywall. Arguably I was way too aggressive when these decisions were made in 2016.These days, this paywall is outright user hostile. It's being fixed. / Twitter"

Spoiler alert: a key component of the forthcoming v50 update is ***massively reducing*** the number of features put behind a paywall. Arguably I was way too aggressive when these decisions were made in 2016.These days, this paywall is outright user hostile. It's being fixed.

In an effort to balance the desire to appeal to as many people as possible with the reality that the app must continue to generate revenue to be sustainable, Action Launcher v50 introduces a dynamic monetization system for different regions:

The result: Action Launcher v50 offers a terrific experience for everyone, whether you opt to purchase the Plus upgrade or not.

Search levels up

Action Search is Action Launcher’s in-built search functionality accessible directly from the home screen. Similar to Pixel Launcher, Action Search allows you to search the web and your device directly from your home screen. The web, your apps and contacts, and even system and Action Launcher settings are just a few keystrokes.

Action Launcher v50 contains numerous search improvements we think you’ll love.

A more helpful Action Search

Action Launcher v50 introduces recently changed app settings into your search history. And we don’t mind saying, this is quite the enhancement.

Settings history in Action Search

Action Launcher v50 displays any recently changed settings directly in the Action Search history. From here you can change the setting itself, or quickly jump to the parent settings screen. This rapidly reduces the time taken to tweak a setting until it’s juuust right.

Say goodbye to the days of Open settings ➡️ Open desired settings screen ➡️ navigate to the setting ➡️ change setting value ➡️ return to launcher to view result ➡️ Go back to step 1 until you’re happy.

Customization including Action Search Targets

Action Launcher v50 introduces Action Search Targets, allowing you to quickly jump to popular search destinations directly from Action Search.

Other Action Search enhancements include:

• Customize Action Search sources
• New option to always open searches in a browser
• Search suggestions for first time users

A more helpful settings experience

Along side adding settings to Action Search history, v50 sees Action Launcher’s main settings screen gain two major new enhancements: a dedicated settings search bar, and shortcuts to recently changed settings.

We’ve also re-jigged some internals to ensure that all available settings can be found via search.

Tweaking your home screen has never been easier or more efficient!

Bug fixes

Continuing Action Launcher’s 2022 development theme of “improvement”, we’d be remiss to not make mention of the countless bug fixes that we’ve made since Action Launcher v49.0 released in early March. A total of 23 point releases of v49 were released, with many long standing bugs squashed in the process.

We’re biased, but we feel the combination of Action Launcher’s historical feature set, v49’s gesture navigation animations, v49.x’s countless bug fixes and v50’s improved freemium unlocks and Action Search enhancements make Action Launcher v50 the most feature rich, bug free and accessible for all release ever. We hope you agree.

Release notes

• NEW: Greatly reduce features requiring Plus upgrade and make the app more appealing to non-paying customers.
• NEW: Action Search displays recently changed settings in its history, allowing one to tweak settings changes directly from the home screen.
• NEW: Add Search Target bar which displays at the top of Action Search results. Allows one to direct searches directly to popular services such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Play Store, etc.
• NEW: Settings displays dedicated search bar.
• NEW: Shortcuts to recently changed settings display at top of settings. Toggle on/off via "Help -> Recent settings".
• NEW: Customize Action Search sources.
• NEW: "Open searches in browser" setting.
• NEW: Add initial Action Search suggestions that display if there's no search history.
• NEW: Add Google Search shortcut to Quickbar's quick select panel.
• NEW: Display Plus banner on settings toolbar.
• NEW: Add 10th wallpaper to 2022 Supporter Pack.
• IMPROVEMENT: No longer request WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission. The only code that used that was legacy backup code which has been disabled for more than a month.
• IMPROVEMENT: Revamp Help menu items, including adding FAQ link.
• IMPROVEMENT: Change picker settings UI to use a bottom sheet style picker.
• IMPROVEMENT: Increase max auto complete suggestions from 3 to 5.
• IMPROVEMENT: Improve algorithm for identifying settings items to display from an Action Search query.
• FIX: Squashed dock/search box on large tablets (thanks myculito#1992, Sid6Niner#5646, Grantman#1499 and others).
• FIX: Increase default workspace margin for devices with gesture navigation.
• FIX: Google search opens to google.com in a browser if the Google App is not available/disabled.
• FIX: Stability fix using composite emoji in Action Search (thanks ritsl#1461).
• FIX: Prevent opening widget picker when desktop is locked.

Action Launcher v50 embraces non-paying users & enhances search was originally published in Action Launcher on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Action Launcher Plugin app is an optional, companion app for Action Launcher. When installed, Plugin allows Action Launcher to display the Google Discover feed (previously known as Google Now) by swiping from the leftmost home screen in Action Launcher.

Version 4.0

Action Launcher Plugin v4.0 fixes disconnection issues related to the Discover feed.

When running Action Launcher v49 or later and Plugin version 4, Action Launcher automatically reconnects to the Discover feed if it is disconnected for whatever reason.

Those running Action Launcher v48 or earlier need to manually download and update to Action Launcher Plugin v4.0.

Action Launcher Plugin 4.0 direct link: action_launcher_plugin_4.apk.

Action Launcher Plugin 4.0 was originally published in Action Launcher on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Transition home animations

Most of us unlock our phone 100+ times a day. The number of times we transition from an app back to our launcher is in the 100s. Previously, how Action Launcher displayed during this transition was entirely controlled by the system. Typically, returning home saw Action Launcher “just there” on screen. And in the most sub-optimal cases, notably when using gesture navigation, Android’s SystemUI might ‘snap’ Action Launcher on screen part way through the process of returning home as other apps are minimized.

We’ll save you the rant about the Android team putting all 3rd party launchers at a disadvantage here by not offering an API to use the same transition animations stock launchers use and instead jump to the good news: Action Launcher v49 introduces new transition home animations that drastically improve the appearance as you return to the launcher.

In total, Action Launcher v49’s transition home animation feature introduces:

• Four custom transition home animation types
• Control over whether anims play only when returning via a Home button press/gesture or also when returning home via a Back press/gesture
• Options to tweak animation speeds, bounce intensity, etc.

Improved icons support

Action Launcher v49 brings some much needed love to icons. Key enhancements include:

• Adaptive icon support for icons packs (apologies for the delay adding this)
• Updated appearance of daily Google Calendar icon
• Revamped app icon for Action Launcher itself

Improved search bar customization

New enhancements to Action Launcher’s fully customizable “Quickbar” include:

• Option to use Brave Search
• Native Google Lens support
• Increased search bar height to match the times

2022 Supporter Badge

Action Launcher’s Supporter Badge is an opt-in program where long-time Action Launcher customers who want to make an additional purchase to support the app’s development can do so.

A Supporter Badge has been offered every year since 2016. In truth, I was planning on skipping it in 2022 on account of my feeling Action Launcher didn’t do enough to ‘earn it’ in 2021.

However, given:

• the fine members of Action Launcher’s official Discord pleas to add one
• Although 2022 is but 10 weeks old, Action Launcher has shaken off 2021’s rust with 2 major updates & 15 minor/beta updates already…

The 2022 Supporter Pack is here! The 9 bonus wallpapers included look just smashing!

A reminder about the Action Launcher Discord

Action Launcher’s Discord is off to a great start. Particularly interesting is the the “#✍️-dev-log” channel, where I provide continuous, warts & all Tweet style updates about the app’s development. Do join us!

Polish and fixes aplenty

Rounding out the v49 update is a swath of bug fixes and general polish. Full details can be found in the complete release notes.

• NEW: Vastly improved transition animations when returning to Action Launcher from other apps. Particularly helpful when using gesture navigation! 
• NEW: Customize transition animations via "Settings ➡️ Animation & appearance ➡️ Transition home animation".
• NEW: Adaptive icon pack support!
• NEW: Updated app icon.
• NEW: Added 2022 Supporter Pack. Includes 9 gorgeous wallpapers available from the wallpaper picker.
• NEW: Brave Search support.
• NEW: Update appearance of bundled Calendar icons.
• NEW: Add Google Lens to trigger picker and Quickbar presets.
• NEW: Add dedicated "Animation & appearance" settings page.
• NEW: If the app disconnects from the Discover feed, automatically reconnect. Note: requires a manual update to Action Launcher Plugin v4.0.
• IMPROVEMENT: Polish settings.
• IMPROVEMENT: Widget stack shows most recently displayed widget upon app reload.
• IMPROVEMENT: Remove navigation bar tint from All Apps drawer.
• IMPROVEMENT: Increase search bar height to match the times.
• IMPROVEMENT: "Screen edge shadow" is now disabled by default. Change via "Settings ➡️ Animation & appearance ➡️ Screen edge shadow".
• FIX: Icon pack fallback icons displaying incorrectly.
• FIX: Fix visual glitch when pressing Home to exit settings when using gesture navigation.
• FIX: Re-populate Quickbar in the event it is inadvertently erased.
• FIX: Crash some folks had attempting to access Quickbar settings.
• FIX: Crash some folks had attempting to trigger a device backup.
• FIX: Radio button displaying over the top of icon previews in icon indicator/unread settings.

Action Launcher v49 adds transition animations, improved icon support & much more was originally published in Action Launcher on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Action Launcher v48 is now available in the Google Play store. The focus of this v48.x updates was simple: prepare the app for future updates and quash bugs.

The full change log of the v48.x updates are as follows:

• NEW: Lots of boring, under-the-hood changes to prepare for future updates (including compiling against Android 12 and upgrading to Google Play's new billing library).
• NEW: Expand supported countries for Bing search.
• NEW: Add link to Discord server in settings.
• IMPROVEMENT: App startup time.
• IMPROVEMENT: Polish widget shadows.
• FIX: Fix bug where recent Plus purchasers were unable to switch to Google search whilst using Action Search.
• FIX: Google Assistant being triggered when a text search is desired. 🙌
• FIX: Widgets rendering. The "Problem loading widget" error message that displayed for widgets such as Google Weather is now a thing of the past. 🎉
• FIX: At a Glance widget no longer gets stuck in "Dinner with Katie" demo state. 🎊
• FIX: ActionDash widget displays properly. 🥳
• FIX: Fixed "App isn't installed" message incorrectly displaying at times when changing a Shutter's widget.
• FIX: Stability fix when disabling the dock whilst the dock contains a widget (such as the Google pill).
• FIX: Stability fix using a widget stack on the Quickpage.
• FIX: Stability fix opening folder settings on certain devices.
• FIX: Stability fix when restoring from backup.
• FIX: Only display weather settings if a weather provider is available. Weather improvements are planned for future releases.
• Google Weather widget works on widget stacks and Shutters.
• FIX: Misc. stability fixes.

Bringing back Community

Back in the day, Action Launcher had a vibrant Community on Google+. We made a mistake in not seeking a replacement upon Google killing G+. That replacement is the official Action Launcher Discord.

We’re aiming for this to be the best place for Action Launcher customers to make request features, get support and more. Please join us!

Why so long?

We apologize for the lengthy time since the previous v47.x update. To be upfront, this was due to two factors:

• Much of our recent development focus has been on ActionWalls products (some publicly available, many not 😕).
• Action Launcher’s billing system was built using an older version of Google Play’s billing code, and as of September 2020, Google requires that all apps use their newer billing system before any update can be released.

The focus problem is easily solved by making Action Launcher the development priority.

Upgrading Action Launcher’s billing code proved a slow, cumbersome engineering effort with no shortcuts.

Chris Lacy on Twitter: "Current status: wanting to push an Action Launcher update but that requires upgrading the Play Billing library which requires porting ActionWalls' billing code which requires porting ActionWalls' core libs which requires syncing dependency versions which requires pic.twitter.com/3zJoEG8raZ / Twitter"

Current status: wanting to push an Action Launcher update but that requires upgrading the Play Billing library which requires porting ActionWalls' billing code which requires porting ActionWalls' core libs which requires syncing dependency versions which requires pic.twitter.com/3zJoEG8raZ

Thankfully this process is now complete, and the result is Action Launcher’s codebase is well prepared for the flurry of feature updates we have planned going forward.

Thanks for your continued use of Action Launcher. This year will mark the app’s 10th anniversary, and we’re looking forward to continuing to bring innovative and powerful customizations to your home screen.

Action Launcher v48 arrives with bug fixes aplenty was originally published in Action Launcher on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Some features need a lengthy introduction. Action Launcher’s newest feature, widget stacks, needs only to be seen:

If you look closely, there’s quite a bit going on here. It’s clear to see that you can page different widgets up and down via a vertical swipe.

But what about the widgets which themselves scroll (such as Gmail or a Calendar widget)? Widget Stacks detects such widgets, and handles a vertical scroll depending on where the widget is swiped. Swiping the left or right edge of the widget stack scrolls to the next widget, swiping in from the edges scrolls the widget contents. The best of both worlds!

Widget stacks can be found in Action Launcher’s widget list. You can add as many widgets to a widget stack as you like, so the customizations available to you are limited only by your imagination.

The 2021 Supporter Badge is here!

Action Launcher v47 introduces the now customary, annual Supporter Badge for 2021.

This year’s Supporter Badge brings with it the traditional helping of gorgeous wallpapers. There’s some real beauties this year!

Full release notes are here.

We hope you enjoy Action Launcher v47!

Action Launcher v47 introduces Widget Stacks was originally published in Action Launcher on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

🆕 Adaptive icon styles

Action Launcher v46 adds support for 5 new adaptive icons styles: Flower, Hexagon, Pebble, Square (tapered) and Vessel. Best of all, these adaptive icon styles work on both icons and folders (take that Pixel Launcher 😃).

🆕 Quicktheme gains manual color picker

Action Launcher’s Quicktheme feature, which automatically themes your search bar, folders and app drawers based on the color of your wallpaper, has long been one of its most unique and powerful features.

Action Launcher v42 added support for allowing users to select a manual color from the Material color palette, but for some, that still wasn’t enough control. Well ask and you shall receive, as Action Launcher v46 adds full support for manual color selection to Quicktheme (finally!).

🆕 Daily backup options

Action Launcher has long offered support for manually exporting home screen layouts. Increasingly users are asking for a way to automate this process to a location of their choosing.

With Action Launcher v46, we’re pleased to introduce support for daily layout backups to Google Drive. These backups work in true “set it and forget it” style, requiring you to simply configure the Drive account to use.

A reminder: Action Launcher’s backups are the only time the app transfers any information about your layout or app usage, and only does so to locations of your choosing and/or accounts under your control.

🆕 Android 11 support

v46 adds builds against Android 11, making the app fully compatible with R’s privacy focused changes around app and device storage access.

We hope you enjoy Action Launcher v46. It took a bit longer to release than we’d hoped (partly because 2020, partly because other stuff), but we’re excited to release this update, and doubly excited for what we’ve got planned for the rest of the year!

Install Action Launcher for free via Google Play.

Action Launcher v46 adds 5 new adaptive icon styles & more was originally published in Action Launcher on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It became apparent that selling ActionDash would have two key benefits:

• Allowing my company to streamline its development focus.
• Crucially, a sale would provide the resources needed to properly launch my brand new, long in development (and soon to be revealed!) app.

Ultimately, I decided that the best move for ActionDash, its current and future users, and my company, was to accept the acquisition offer.

ActionDash + Sensor Tower

ActionDash has been acquired by Sensor Tower, the leading, independent, enterprise-focused mobile analytics company. I feel Sensor Tower is a great fit for ActionDash and, most importantly, its users, for numerous reasons.

Crucially, Sensor Tower’s business model and responsible use of data aligns well with my company’s long held practice of respecting user privacy. Sensor Tower is not in the business of collecting and selling personally identifiable information, serving personalized ads, etc. — rather, Sensor Tower might use aggregated, anonymized app usage data from ActionDash to allow its enterprise customers to gain insights such as “engagement in Competing App X increased 20% since its 5.0 update” or “Category Y’s downloads are increasing by 10%”.

I’m also long-time acquaintances with the Android folk who will take over ActionDash development, so I know the app is in the absolute best of hands.

Finally, the reality is Sensor Tower is in a much stronger position to devote resources to growing and improving ActionDash than I am. It is also able to offer features that would simply not be feasible were my company to continue to operate the app. No promises, but I’m also rather excited by the idea that a few of my long-gestating-yet-not-quite-finished ActionDash features could be polished and released going forward.

See here for further details from Sensor Tower about ActionDash’s acquisition.

A win for ActionDash users

Accompanying today’s acquisition news is an exciting new ActionDash update.

In the interests of full transparency, a UI prompt will inform users about the ownership change, and ask users whether to opt in or out of data collection. A gentle reminder: ActionDash has never had a user account or login system, which is typically how a company would tie app usage data to a specific user, and that will remain the same with Sensor Tower.

After accepting the new privacy policy/terms, ActionDash users will immediately notice three key improvements:

• Almost all of ActionDash’s premium features, including Fresh Start, schedules, app usage limits & more, which were previously only available to purchasers of the Plus in-app upgrade, are now unlocked for everyone!
• The price of the Plus in-app upgrade (which now feature gates just two features: biometric authentication & usage history going back more than seven days) has reduced to 99 cents!
• All advertisements have been removed!

Users who do opt in to sharing device usage data will soon be able to access new features that are only possible as a result of collecting such data. As an example, ActionDash will be able to inform you not just about your usage of YouTube, but how your usage compares to others. Users who do not opt in will not have access to such features, but will continue to receive a full featured ActionDash experience.

A few other miscellaneous notes:

• Purchases of the Plus in-app upgrade made during my company’s previous ownership of ActionDash are linked to your Google Account, and will continue to work going forward.
• Action Launcher’s deep ActionDash integration will remain in place.

Thanking you!

I’d like to thank each and every person who used, bought and supported ActionDash during the past 18 months. There was little more than a year between the first line of code being written and ActionDash winning a Google Play Best Everyday Essentials award — this doesn’t happen without dedicated and delighted users-come-evangelists, so again, thank you!

I very much look forward to seeing ActionDash flourish going forward, as I transition from being ActionDash’s steward to its keenest advocate.

ActionDash has been acquired was originally published in Action Launcher on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Just in time for Christmas, Action Launcher v45 is ready to go, bringing with it a stocking full of user feature requests.

🆕 Android 10 gesture navigation support

December’s Pixel feature drop saw the Android team make good on its promise of bringing support for Android 10’s gesture navigation to third party launchers, and the v45 update sees Action Launcher fully compatible with the Android 10’s gesture navigation (note: requires the Android 10 December 2019 system update).

No longer do Action Launcher’s bleeding edge Android users have to pick between their favorite launcher or the new gesture navigation system!

🆕 Deeper ActionDash integration

ActionDash, our Google Play Best of 2019 award-winning digital wellbeing app, continues to gain deeper Action Launcher integration with two key enhancements.

🆕 Widget

After a deluge of user requests, Action Launcher v45 now offers up-to-the-second stats about your device usage by an ever-updating widget. For bonus points, try and stop yourself from spinning it endlessly!

🆕 Pausing apps

To pause usage of an app for the rest of the day, simply long-press that app’s icons and tap the Pause icon.

Paused apps automatically unpause at the start of the next day.

Both features require ActionDash 6.0, which is also releasing today.

🆕 Quicktheme support for live wallpapers

Action Launcher’s users have long since loved its Quicktheme feature, which automatically tints a user’s home screen based on the colors of your wallpaper.

The v45 update enhances Quicktheme support by extracting colors from live wallpapers. Whether you use still photos of your kids or the latest animated live wallpaper, your Action Launcher home screen is always the perfect match!

🆕 Improved dual apps support

Between Android Enterprise, or OEM customizations that allow app installations to be duplicated, it’s possible for multiple copies of the same app to be installed on a device. Action Launcher now offers much improved support for these cases, allowing for shortcuts and gesture triggers to be configured independently for each installation.

🆕 Startpage search engine support

As we say goodbye to 2019, user privacy has never been a more front and center issue for many of us. With this in mind, Action Launcher now offers support for the privacy conscious Startpage search engine.

Note: DuckDuckGo support was added a few months back.

🆕 2020 Supporter Pack

Finally, as Action Launcher enters its eighth year, v45 introduces the customary annual Supporter Badge, which long-time users can opt to buy to support continued development of the app.

The five 2020 Supporter Badge wallpapers are particularly smashing.

Install Action Launcher for free via Google Play.

Links

• APK
• Release notes
• Press images

Action Launcher v45 adds Android 10 gesture nav support, ActionDash widget & more was originally published in Action Launcher on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Enhanced theming

Dark theme support

Action Launcher v42 adds full theme support, allowing users to select between light, dark and full black themes. Theme support is most noticeable in the app’s settings, but subtly impacts the home screen itself also.

Greatly enhanced Quicktheme

Action Launcher’s unique & ever popular Quicktheme feature, which automatically colors home screen items such as the search box, folder background and app drawer to match your wallpaper, is also much improved.

First, Quicktheme now allows for custom color selection from the entire material design color palette, allowing one to quickly select specific colors.

Best of all, Quicktheme color matching now integrates tightly with the current theme, allowing for boundless theming possibilities. Want to have the search box update as your wallpaper changes, always use a blue All Apps drawer but have folder icons tint based on the current theme? You can do all this and more!

Google Discover feed enhancements

Discover (aka Google Now) integration has been improved, with the feed appearance now matching the theme selection. Dark themed Google Discover here we come!

Deeper ActionDash integration

Our digital wellbeing app ActionDash recently received a major 3.0 update, adding new features such as focus mode and app usage limits. We’re thrilled with how it’s been received, so do check it out if you’ve not yet done so!

Donn Felker 🇺🇲 on Twitter

Been using Action Dash's focus mode. In short, I love it. I block all social apps and its a great reminder to get back to work. Love this feature. I use the tile to enable disable it. I turn it on before I go to sleep and then when I wake I'm instantly reminded to focus.

Action Launcher v42 enhances ActionDash integration. In addition to providing a shortcut to jump to usage status for a specific app, Action Launcher now helpfully ‘greys out’ icons of apps that are currently blocked (due to either focus mode being active or the app’s daily usage limit being exceeded).

Install Action Launcher (and ActionDash!) for free via Google Play:

Other links

• Press assets
• Release notes
• APK

Action Launcher v42 adds deeper theme enhancements & ActionDash integration was originally published in Action Launcher on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Action Launcher Plugin app is an optional, companion app for Action Launcher. When installed, Plugin allows Action Launcher to display the Google Discover feed (previously known as Google Now) by swiping from the leftmost home screen in Action Launcher.

Version 4.0

When running Action Launcher v49 or later and Plugin version 4, Action Launcher automatically reconnects to the Discover feed if it is disconnected for whatever reason.

Action Launcher Plugin also supports Dark theme on the Google Discover feed.

Those running Action Launcher v49.1 or later will need manually download and update to Action Launcher Plugin v4.0 to continue using the Google Discover feed.

Action Launcher Plugin is available as a free download:

• Direct link: https://actionlauncher.com/plugin/get
• APKMirror: https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/action-launcher/action-launcher-google-plugin/

Note: the Action Launcher Plugin is not able to be distributed via Google Play (otherwise we’d just put the functionality directly into Action Launcher), so installing it requires manually downloading and installing it. Those that feel comfortable doing this should feel free to enjoy Action Launcher Plugin’s extra features. Those that don’t, rest assured Action Launcher itself still has more than enough goodness to keep anyone content 😃.

Action Launcher Plugin 4.0 was originally published in Action Launcher on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.