Gadgetory

so this is the Nexus launcher which is what we're expecting to see running on the upcoming 2016 nexuses it may not look like much but there's actually a whole bunch of funky stuff going on that's nothing like the stock Android launcher you already know the best part of it is that you can install it on your phone right now I'm Chris Colin with Android authority here to take a quick look at the leaked Nexus launcher so what have we got well there's a date widget you can't move or resize and on the other side we've got this little pill shaped Google button tapping it brings up search as usual but tapping it again launches Google now don't worry you can still swipe to the right to access Google now in the same familiar fashion you're probably used to down the bottom of the home screen you'll see that there's no app drawer icon anymore but we don't have endless screens full of apps either what we do have is a little arrow which does the exact same thing tap in to bring up the app drawer instantly or slide it up to enjoy the cool transparent animation while plenty of people will hate this new launcher this is actually an old Android feature that has been resurrected if we jump into the launcher settings real quick you'll see that we have a few toggles including the option to remove the app suggestions from the top row of the app drawer so if you're not a fan of having Google Suggest apps you based on your habits you can just get rid of them entirely heading back to the settings you can also disable the dedicated Google now screen and turn home screen rotation on or off in landscape mode you've still got access to Google now on the left and the app drawer arrow sits on the left hand side there's also a fancy new wallpaper picker we've got a wallpaper summary up the top here and you've got access to all of your own photos as well as the stock launch of wallpapers but there's also a bunch of nice curated collections to choose from as well not only is there a huge list of beautiful images in each section you can also opt in for what's called daily wallpapers once enabled this will display a new wallpaper every day downloading them automatically from the cloud and from what I can see there's some really great stuff in here so it's worth checking out those circular folder windows from the dev user back but as this is a pre-release launch oh we don't know yet if they'll still be there when everything is made official alongside the new nexuses if you want to get the Nexus launcher on your phone you just have to flash the zip file linked in the description below via custom recovery this is because it needs to be installed as a system app to support swiping right for Google now and accessing the new wallpapers if that's a bit too complicated for you you can just install the apk but as you can see on my galaxy s7 edge you can't access Google now of the swipe and when you launch the wallpaper gallery the Nexus launcher crashes which brings me to my final point what exactly is the Nexus launchers status when we already have the Google now launcher is it a replacement and alternative a special launcher just for Nexus devices we really don't know at this point in any case if you're not a fan of the new launcher you can always just switch over to the Google now launcher or any other for that matter but with only a few more weeks to go until Android 7.0 the new nexuses and the nexus launcher are officially unveiled we don't have long to find out in the meantime hit those comments and let me know your thoughts on what you've just seen thanks for watching everybody be sure to hit that like and subscribe button down below and don't forget to visit VR source tab times and sound guys until the next one keep it locked ooh android authority because we are your source for all things Android