Gadgetory

a launcher for Android with 3d transitions reflections and a physics engine built in I'm Joe Levi for pocket now and this may be the most visually impressive launcher that we've ever seen this is my Nexus 4 and on it I'm running a new launcher called the viral on Chur it's in beta and it's available in the Google Play Store right now for free now on the surface this looks just like any other launcher you've got icons you've got widgets you've got your dock down at the bottom and of course you've got your buttons you also have your menu key down here which is where you go into your settings and to add stuff and all kinds of stuff we'll get into that in just a minute the first thing that I want to show you is if you notice up here on this clock widget you'll notice a reflection now that reflection isn't coming from a light or a window in my office know that reflection is based on what's built into this launcher and as I tip the device it knows its orientation and it knows where to place that reflection and it's just cool that's actually rendered on device next let's take a look at transitions see the Hat looks like a big sheet of glass that just flips around and then of course the glass disappears when you're looking at it face on but very nice very fast chamfered edges I don't know if that's guerrilla glass or not but let's hope they got a license to do so very cool that's only one of several transitions that I'm going to show you but what I want to show you first is how these widgets look and how they function this is just a regular widget I've got regular icons on my screen but if I pull down on my clock you'll notice I have a new tray this tray can hold both widgets from via launcher Android widgets shortcuts icons the whole thing and this is actually a two state dock so I can continue to pull it down and get even more stuff and you notice when I did that I had kind of a flare around my finger indicating a screen press very very cool if I want to add something new to this I simply tap and hold I can add an application a widget via applet is what they call them or via shortcuts let's look at via shortcuts so let's go ahead and put in a web browser right here and let's tap and hold again and add another shortcut to my app drawer speaking of app drawers let's go ahead and jump into that kind of a window inside this we can change what we're looking at from all applications to my personal user apps recent apps I haven't run many recent apps since I launched this particular launcher and then my most used applications and then a Clear button so we can clear those if we need to if we want to I'll say no for the time being and then of course back to all of our applications it's very fast very fluid you can see my screen taps they're lit up by a glow so really cool what we want to look into it this is very fast by the way they say it's going to run fast even on very slow devices so if you've got an older device go out download this test it and let us know in the comments how it behaves what I really want to show you some of these other 3d transitions to get to those we're going to come down here to menu go into settings and we've got all these cool things reflections were enabled by default I did turn on HD shaders which is allowing me to use real-time reflections and transition effects and full screen transitions was on by default we can change the launcher theme it came at outline I changed it over here to basic because I like the icons the way they look a little bit better but transitions that's what we want to see so let's start out we're in Crystal right now let's look at tiles go back home take a look at this see that all the tiles just kind of Block in and block out then it's fast if you want to show it off or want to see it you can swipe across slowly just not too slowly because you'll do what I just hit but pull it across and wow it's just pretty let's go ahead and look at some other transition effects this one is called cube free it kind of zooms out and puts your home screens your panels in this cube that then you rotate between very cool transit in effect I like the way they handle the wallpaper just very smooth very neat here we've got the basic transition and that's just a basic side-to-side slider it doesn't show you the outline of the page as you're sliding side to side which I kind of miss but it's still very nice very smooth and even when you're in mid transition you've still got that really nice reflection just you've got to see this to really understand and to really appreciate it there are a whole bunch of other transition styles in here that we've seen before going back to cube we have a cube in and cube out that are essentially what we've seen in other launchers fade in fade out scroll in scroll out flip just all kinds of stuff overall the one I like best however is crystal that I showed you up front that looks like you're just sitting on a nice sheet of glass just very nice smooth fluid go ahead and download it from the Play Store let us know what you think in the comments over PocketNow comm I think you are going to be very very impressed if you are and you like what you saw give the video a thumbs up and while you're at it why not share this video with your friends on Facebook Twitter and Google+ for pocket now throwing off even more cool launchers like a viral I sure I'm Joe Levi thanks for watching