Prelude
I’ve been sitting on this post for awhile (read: months) as I wanted to write something longer, robust and full of detail how I worked through re-thinking how I engage with my portable compute devices like my Samsung Z Fold 4 and Boox Palma. Annoyingly the re-think of my Android devices triggered a much deeper re-think of how I approach ‘focused time’ and some other things. The bigger re-think is a super set of the information I hoped to put forth here and, frankly, I’d rather use my few spoons and energies to just write the ’total re-think of compute’ blog post.
However
I don’t think all the ‘Android Tuning’ I’ve done deserves to be lumped into another blog post.
This post is a quick run down of some cool Android apps and areas of frustration I found over the last 6 months (ish) and insight into how one might address such things.
Keyboard
TLDR: I’ve been described as ‘very religious’ about keyboards and believe if you don’t invest in your keyboard you’re doomed to be pissed off at a computer, phone or any other hunk of electronics with a ‘keyboard’ (software or hardware based).
When SwiftKey decided to add CoPilot AI… I bailed at my first opportunity and I only used SwiftKey because I don’t trust Google. At. All.
I ended up landing on Unexpected Keyboard with Florisboard as a backup and Grafitti on any device I use with a stylus. The big reason I went with Unexpected Keyboard is that I was able to have both MessageEase and QWERTY layouts side-by side and easily usable from a single keyboard app. During my testing I realized I quite like the MessageEase layout in portrait mode and QWERTY in landscape mode. Rather than try to flip/flop between two keyboards, I leveraged the custom layout feature of Unexpected Keyboard to create a MessageEase layout and now I can just flip/flop between MessageEase and QWERTY freely. Much like how I flip/flop between 40% ARDUX and Big ARDUX on a Corne running QMK.
Each of these is a good keyboard and I recommend you review and try any that look interesting.
- Unexpected Keyboard
- full blown qwerty keeb implementation
- if you use termux/juicessh/connectbot/other terms you want this keeb
- has a lot of good features and tunables
- can have custom layouts (there are docs and a web based layout editor)
- kemonine implemented a messagease layout for unexpected here
- if you use this keeb and are considering thumb key or flickboard, consider using kemo’s messagease layout for this keeb instead
- HeliBoard
- basically a std android keep with the usual features
- qwerty / bog std for what youd expect these days
- Florisboard
- boring qwerty with spell check/auto-correct/etc ‘under development’
- qwerty / ultra boring
- what kemonine uses for a ‘standard / normie using their phone keeb’
- Thumb Key
- a novel one handed layout with speed in mind
- one handed and fast once you learn the layout
- is a spiritual successor to messagease
- includes messagease layouts (use the messagease ones, not thumb-key ones)
- has good blend of features but not ‘all’ ive seen asked for
- this or flickboard will be a win for most
- Flickboard
- novel one handed layout with speed in mind
- uses std messagease layouts
- was created because messagease moved to a subscription model to use
- has good blend of features but not ‘all’ ive seen asked for
- this or thumb-key will be a win for most
- 8VIM
- if youre into swiping to type, this is the keeb for you
- has a novel approach thats faster than the qwerty swiping keebs
- highly regarded as ‘good’ and definitely worth investigating if swiping is your thing
- Grafitti
- literal palm grafitti on android
- works with s pen and adonit styluses and others
- install on any device where pen may be used
Launcher
Launches are another area of Android that can make or break ones willingness to work with a device. For years I ran Nova then Microsoft Launcher then I got my first folding phone and… well… I had to do some re-thinking. Then I switched to the Z Fold 4 alongside a Boox Palma and had to think even harder about how I wanted to proceed.
The Boox Palma was pretty easy to adjust: I went with olauncher which is a simple, textual launcher with a list of favorites and search with list to find non-favorite apps. I adore this launcher for ‘focused’ devices like the Boox Palma. Unfortunately it was eclipsed by Niagara Launcher after I re-thought how I use my Z Fold 4 day to day.
I ended up going all in on Niagara Launcher for a few reasons: it’s simple, does what I need, lets me actually focus on what I care about most and is basically a more robust form of olauncher which I had come to prefer but is too minimal for my daily use of a folding phone.
That said: I’ve used each of the below launcher and each are good choices (except Nova, maybe) and I highly recommend giving each a try as the way you interact with your home screen will be highly individual and each of the below should cover most, if not all, use cases I’ve heard about and/or encountered in life.
- olauncher / pro launcher by digital minimalism
- for focused devices (boox book devices / fiio music devices / etc)
- simple, straightforward and gets out of your way
- has some basic amenities but is very clearly ‘a textual list of apps’ above all else
- niagara launcher
- great text launcher
- if you’re into text lists, this is a good one to review
- can do widgets and more on ‘main page’
- very good ’list style’
- youll want pro to get at all the fancier tunables
- if you’re into olauncher or text launchers, this is worth looking at closer
- smart launcher
- highly tunable
- mash up of Nova and microsoft launchers
- probably a better starting point than Nova these days
- no way to have separate layouts for phone and tablet modes
- square home
- think windows phone launcher and windows 8 start menu tile/dash board setups
- literally: this is a proper hot take on the windows 8 and windows phone launcher stuff
- aio launcher
- minimal launcher with lots of ‘bells and whistles’
- feels like a big text dashboard
- nova launcher
- great, been around forever custom launcher on the whole
- no way to have separate layouts for phone and tablet modes – this is a deal breaker
- seeing implications the devs have no interest in foldable phone support / dual screen support
- may be on life support post-purchase from the original dev/team
- smart launcher is probably the better choice as of the writing of this blog post
Weather App
Succinctly: the corporate weather apps are trash, the few indies that were available have been absorbed into bigger corporations, greedflation is a thing for ‘activating features’ and on the whole I’ve grown weary of late stage capitalism stupidity and its extractive nature. Since I was in a bit of a ’re-think stuff’ brain space I used the opportunity to nuke AccuWeather from orbit on my devices.
After an incredible amount of testing and trying to make ‘common’ weather apps not suck… I ended with Breezy Weather and Radarscope as my weather app and weather radar app. There are others but these two are far, far, far, more powerful than any single app, especially the commercial ones. In Breezy, I can pick which weather data sources I want (in my case: NWS in the USA) and have a lovely UI that gets out of the way and can be highly tuned for individual need/desire. I also get a no-shit, storm chaser grade radar app for cheap (or totally free if you desire). They both Just Work, get the hell out of my way and only spit out notifications when it’s an alert I need to pay attention to (these can be adjusted in the app settings).
For serious weather alerts (tornado warnings) and similar, I went with CodeRed Mobile Alerts despite the app having trash reviews. It’s just reliable enough to be usable and it ties into the local, county and state notification systems so I can get more localized alerts as appropriate. I’d love to move to a different app but this is the most reliable I’ve found to date (sadly).
Samsung Device Tweaks
Succinctly: I use Samsung Android devices thanks to Dex and some other features they offer that aren’t available on other devices. Interestingly there are a few apps that allow finer tuning of Samsung devices. They work similar to PowerToys on Windows in so far as they give you extra features/tuning options that should probably be part of the OS but aren’t for whatever reason. Below are the few I found and notable features they provide.
- zFont
- Lets you change the system UI font to whatever font you desire
- My phone now uses Atkinson Hyperlegible as the default font
- Good Lock
- Only in the Samsung store
- S Pen enhancements
- Custom lock screen / ambient display
- Nav bar / gesture tunings
- Additional home screen tunables
- Custom clock faces to replace std ones
- Additional quick panel tuning
- Screenshot / screen record enhancements
- Notification history improvements
- Multi window improvements
- Camera enhancements
- Audio setting enhancements
- Good Guardians
- Only in the Samsung store
- Privileged tuning (battery / memory / thermal stand out)