One thing that has always been a big part of Android is the seemingly infinite customization options available to users. From fonts, to widgets, to wallpapers, and shortcuts, Customizing your home screen and various other parts of the phone like the sms app and keyboards has become something of a powerhouse feature that users love. One such customization feature that is arguably one of the most popular though is the ability to swap out your Home Launcher. According to Flurry, Android Home Launcher applications are on a rise. Compared to the usage of Android Home Launcher apps throughout all of 2013, the usage of the Home launcher has already surpassed that amount in just this portion of Q1 alone. There are plenty of Home Launchers out there, so it shouldn’t come as any surprise that there are a significantly larger number of people that are interested in using them.
There’s litterally a Home launcher available to suit just about anyone’s tastes, with some of the most popular being Nova, Apex, and GO launcher. Those specifically are pegged as some of the best for their infinite customization abilities and tweaks, while others like Aviate who was newly acquired by Yahoo, and the yet unreleased Facebook Home provide a more tailored approach to the home screen for anyone who uses it, focusing on things that matter most to the user and giving them access to things that they want to use the most.
Flurry notes that it thinks there is plenty of room for growth potential in the space of Home Launcher apps, even with 30 million monthly users of Home Launchers in the U.S. You can see from the chart above the number of users Of Android Personalization apps from all the way back in Q1 of 2012 to Q1 this year, which measures the number of users in the billions. Flurry has over 4,500 Android personalization apps on its platform which is how it was able to measure these numbers for Home Launcher use. Ultimately, Home Launchers not only serve as a way for users to make their home screen unique, but more functional and efficient. Not everyone uses the Home launcher app this way, but with growing possibilities of what you can do with the launchers, more and more people will surely find a use for having one themselves.