Home launchers were introduced to help users get the information they need at a glance without digging through several apps at one time. And although home launchers have not replaced the stock home screen altogether, the latest home launcher from Samsung's Accelerator innovation center might just turn the tide.
Terrain, the new launcher developed by former YouTube employee and Terrain Home founder Dwipal Desai, looks like a regular Android screen at first glance. However, one swipe from the right brings up a sidebar that contains all the information found relevant by the user stacked in cards similar to those used by Google Now. There are currently 60 cards available on Terrain, with cards for basic apps such as weather, calendar, traffic and cards that contain the user's favorite Spotify tracks, Facebook news feed and feeds from news sources such as the New York Times. Terrain keeps tabs on the user's activities to determine which apps become available in these cards. Users can then customize each of the cards and tap each card to bring up more specific content.
Swiping from the left brings up the app drawer, which lists the user's apps in alphabetical order, much like in Yahoo's Aviate launcher. To search for contacts, apps and other content on their phone, users can swipe from the top to bring down the search bar.
While Terrain is not the first home launcher to hit the market, it is poised to make big waves in the sector because it was designed as an energy-efficient launcher. Most home launchers quickly drain a phone's battery because of all the monitoring of a user's favorite activities they have to do. Not terrain.
"We created Terrain Home with a goal to make your phone more efficient and streamlined to use," writes the Terrain team on its website. "Smartphones have been around for over a decade, but you still need to launch an app to get to the content you care about. Terrain makes it easier to access everything you want on your phone, including content, apps and contacts from a consistent interface."
Terrain is available for free on the Google Play Store for phones running on Android 4.2 and up, but it is still in beta version, which means early users may experience bugs and glitches that the home launcher's developers will have to clean up. Early adopters, however, report that Terrain is polished and lag-free for the most part, saying that searching for contacts and lesser used apps on the home launcher was faster than on Samsung's stock home screen, although some of the feeds slowed down during launch.
Developers and media publishers are also welcome to add to Terrain and can sign up here for a software development kit.
