Have an iPhone, but prefer the way Android’s app launcher works? Now there’s an app for that.

AndroidLoader is an app for jailbroken iPhone and iPod touch devices that replaces the dock at the bottom of your device with an Android-style arrow. Tap the arrow and a window will pop up from the bottom of your screen showing a list of applications. You can scroll up and down through this single long list without flipping through home screens.

You can also control media playback from this window — something Android doesn’t offer.

By default the apps are arranged alphabetically. But you can also sort the apps manually. The concept is interesting… but not all that deep. In the 51 second demo video after the break, you basically see someone open and close the app drawer over and over again and get a brief glimpse at the settings menu.

AndroidLoader is available for purchase from the Cydia Store for $2.99.

via iPhoneDownloadBlog

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Zlaunchy is a program launcher for Google Android which takes a kind of old-school approach to text input. Instead of displaying a QWERTY keyboard, the app brings up what looks like a phone dialer with letters assigned to each number on the keypad. To find an application, just start hitting the corresponding letters.

For instance, if you want to find all the apps from Amazon on your phone, you can enter 262 to enter “AMA.” As you type, the list of apps will change until you only see the apps you’re looking for. Just tap on an app name to launch it.

In some cases, you can load an application with just a click or two using this method. If you’ve spent a lot of time entering text on an old T9-style phone keypad, you should feel right at home. Even if you’re more of a QWERTY fan, Zlaunchy might be worth checking out just because the large buttons are much easier to use on small phones than tiny letter keys. But this certainly isn’t an app for everyone.

Zlaunchy is available as a free download from the Android Market. You can also grab the installer from the developer’s web site and read more about the app at xda-developers.
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The developers of the Claystone Android home screen replacement have uploaded a public beta version to the Android Market. Previously the only way to test Claystone was to download and install it manually.

Claystone provides a unique home screen interface with a series of custom widgets and icons, and virtual home screens that don’t take up the full screen. This lets you place widgets, app icons, and shortcuts in a box on your home screen and flip between virtual home screens using attractive 3D animations without succumbing to the illusion that the only screen available is the one you’re staring at right now.

Claystone’s other innovation is something the developers call “content stacks,” which allows you to queue up media and links such as videos, photos, RSS feeds, or web sites.

The new public beta feels a little more polished and responsive than the version I tested a few weeks ago. The menu navigation has also been refined a bit. Users can now combine widgets and shortcuts into customizable panels, and there’s a new option to close all panels in a stock with one click.

Claystone is available as a free download from the Android Market.

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I’m pretty sure I’ve never looked at my Android app launcher and thought, you know what would make this better? 3D graphics and icons that move just enough that they’re actually kind of hard to open. But that’s exactly what homescreen 3D offers. That said, while the app isn’t exactly useful, it sure is kind of pretty to look at, especially if you run the “demo mode” which wll have your application icons flying this way and that across the screen.

Basically, once homescreen 3D is installed, tapping the Home button on your Android device will give you the option of launching the app instead of the default home screen. By default, you’ll see icons for every program installed on your Android device, arranged in alphabetical order. You can remove all the apps and start adding individual apps one by one, or you can rearranged the apps by tapping and holding on an icon you want to move.

What makes the app special are the 3D animated effects. The basic effect turns each icon into a sort of cube, and all of the icon-cubes slowly spin. You can also add effects such as a “sine-wavey action” or “induce nausea on scroll” option.You can also customize the app to use 2, 3, or 4 columns.

The full app is available for $1.50 from the Android Market, but you can aldo download a free version which is fully functional.

via getAndroidStuff

Ever wish the home screen on your Android phone looked more like the Zune HD launcher? Yeah, me neither. But there’s an app for that anyway.

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Zune Home is a $0.99 app available in the Android Market that replicates the basic look and feel of the Zune HD app launcher. Instead of a series of shortcuts and widgets, the Zune Home screen features a list of apps which you can scroll through to launch your most frequently used programs. The app is customizable, allowing you to pin any app to the home screen, or to choose any app you like for the default actions such as contacts, messaging, email, or Twitter.

At its core, Zune Home launcher is kin do f a one-trick pony though. It doesn’t actually bring the Zune HD media player to your phone, for instance. And it doesn’t include the same 3D effects when you actually launch apps. It just gives you a scrollable program list on your home screen.

You can check out a brief video demo from Android Central after the break.

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I’m a big fan of keyboard-based app launchers such as Launchy for Windows or Quicksilver for OS X. If you have a large number of apps installed on your computer, it’s often easier to pull up the program you’re looking for by hitting a hotkey combo and then typing in the first few letters of the app than by sifting through the Windows Start Menu or OS X dock.

WiMoRun brings the same sort of experience to mobile devices running Windows Mobile 6.0 and up.

Basically, once the app is installed, you just select the Run app from the program list, and then type in the name of the app you want to launch.

Honestly, I’m not convinced that WiMoRun is much of a time saver, since it generally takes a lot longer to type using a Windows Mobile on-screen keyboard than a PC keyboard. But if you happen to have a ton of apps on your device, I suppose WiMoRun can save you a bit of scrolling.

The app also includes an auto-complete feature, and a dropdown list of available programs.

WiMoRun is available as a free download from the xda-developers forum, although you’ll need to register for an account to download the installer. You can also download it from Freeware Pocket PC, no registration required.

One of the quirky things about Google Android is that in order to switch applications or interact with a Home Screen widget, you have to tap the home button to leave the current app and then press another button to launch the widget, app, or other item you’re looking for. When you’re done, you have to navigate all the way back to whatever you were doing before.

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For instance, say you’re reading an eBook and you suddenly remember that you wanted to turn off the WiFi. You’d hit the home button, navigate to the area where you have a power widget, turn off the WiFi, and then go and open your eBook reader again from the program menu or list of recent applications.

QuickDesk saves you most of those steps, by giving you a virtual home screen that you can open from any app by double-tapping your home button. When you’re dong interacting with QuickDesk, just tap the back button and you go back to the app you were using.

Anything you can add to the default home screen, you can add to QuickDesk, including widgets, folders, and shortcuts.

QuickDesk Beta is available as a free download from the Android Market. Once you’ve installed it, you’ll probably want to set QuickDesktop as the default home app — and then open the configure menu in QuickDesk and set “default home” back to the default launcher or another home app. This will allow you to tap the home button twice to bring up QuickDesk, or once to bring up your old default.

via Droid Life

Like the look and feel of Microsoft’s new Kin phones, but don’t feel like buying a phone that won’t actually let you run third party apps? No problem. KinLauncher is an app that provides a Kin-like program launcher for Windows Mobile.

The user interface sort of falls apart once you actually click a link on the program launcher and realize that you’re still stuck with the default Windows Mobile (or HTC Sense) web browser, email, phone, and other apps. But at least KinLauncher makes the home screen a lot… greener.

You can also customize the buttons on the program launcher, although the default options look pretty decent with messaging, phone, email, browser, music, camera, settings, alarm, recent, and The Spot buttons.

KinLauncher is available as a free download for Windows Mobile. You can check out a video of the app in action after the break.

via xda-developers

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