Primary Productivity and Convenience FeaturesĪs mentioned, Microsoft Launcher is not an attempt to, as the now defunct Windows Phone OS used to be, bring Windows to your smartphone. You can even access open items, such as documents, photos, and webpages, on your Windows PC, and MS Launcher will in turn open them across all your devices. When you integrate Microsoft Launcher, for example, with your Microsoft work or school account, you gain easy access to your MS Office 365 documents and other files, recent activities in your personalized feed and your calendar, and much more – from Android. In other words, you use MS Office for creating and editing your business documents, Outlook for your email, to do lists, and calendar you save those and most other files on OneDrive and, perhaps, you play and get your entertainment from Xbox, use Cortana for voice commands, video call and conference with Skype, etc. Microsoft Launcher is designed primarily for those who live, work, and play in the Microsoft ecosystem. In other words, there are a lot of options for customizing the appearance and behavior of your Android smartphone.Īll launchers allow you to personalize Android by changing wallpapers, theme colors, icon packs, and, depending on the launcher itself, much more. My search for “Android launchers” at Google’s Play Store turned up just shy of 300 apps, including a few designed to make your Android device emulate iPhones. Another accounting I read said that there were “hundreds” of Android launchers available. Why Microsoft Launcher?Īt last count, Wikipedia’s “ List of Android Launchers” article (updated in 2015) had over 60 entries. Or, better yet, how about this cliché? Users can customize their phones to work the way they do.

In any case, the answer to the question, “Why a third-party launcher?” is primarily the same as the answer to “Why does Android dominate the worldwide smartphone OS market?” Well, because Android is highly customizable users are not locked into the same plain vanilla experience. Considering the number of highly vocal Microsoft naysayers nowadays, those are some impressive numbers.

There are several launchers available, and some, such as Apex, EverythingMe, Smart Launcher 3, Google Now Launcher, and Pixel Launcher, are quite popular, and that includes Microsoft Launcher.Īs I wrote this, at Google Play Store alone, the app boasted over 10 million installs and a 4.6 out of 5 rating.

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