Nokia's new intelligent launcher

Z Launcher

Nokia is not longer the same Nokia we are used to. After the mobile department was sold to Microsoft, the remaining parts needed to reinvent themselves. What came of this was a highly intelligent launcher in a pre-beta version, the Z Launcher. It has arrived with an interesting new concept in tow.

There are many launchers to choose from, but only a select few are as minimalistic as the Z Launcher. And not only that, Nokia promises intelligent minimalism.

Why is the Z Launcher so unique?

The launcher reduces your home screen to a minimum amount of content that is unlike any other. The top portion of the screen holds basic information such as time and your next appointment from your Calendar app. The display is mainly covered by six shortcuts, which aren’t just to apps but also to special actions (like calls to a certain contact or links to a website). Of course, the apps here are the ones use the most. But how does Z Launcher know what it should show? It learns from user behavior.

Here is where the decisive dynamics come into play, Z Launcher caters different content to different times of the day, which also corresponds to what you are doing on your device most at a specific time. The main overview is never lost, but at the same time you will still have your normal app dock at the bottom part of the display.

Scribble feature

But what happens when you want to use an app or complete an action which isn’t presently on the home screen? The launcher has incorporated a fancy new feature called Scribble, which allows you to draw the first letter of the app/action you are looking for. The launcher then offers the results in list from of what you were possibly looking for. The search is prioritized by the apps for which you search for the most, so for example if Facebook is scribbled most often, then the app will pull this up whenever you draw an F on the screen.

At the moment, the Z Launcher is still in a limited pre-beta version, but it already appears to be quite stable. The app still hasn’t be uploaded on to the Google Play Store, but it can be downloaded from a dedicated Nokia website. There you’ll need to sign up with your Google+ account, download it and you are ready to get Z launcher on your Android smartphone. For the time being, only high end smartphones are supported, and just unrooted devices too, but I’m certain that more will be added in the near future.

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