After launching in a private beta over the summer, Microsoft’s Arrow Launcher for Android is now live for everyone.
Arrow Launcher is available for download in Google Play. The app is meant to replace the stock launcher on your Android phone or tablet with four main pages: Apps, which are arranged based on your usage; People, for your contacts; Reminders, which houses both your notes and reminders; and Recent, a page that’ll show your recently used files, downloads, dropped calls, and more.
Arrow Launcher also features a customizable dock that’ll let you pick out some apps that’ll be available on any of the aforementioned pages. Swipe up from the dock and you’ll get an iOS Control Center-style panel with toggles for things like Airplane Mode and Wi-Fi, as well as a brightness slider. The launcher support custom wallpapers and can pull from Bing to change your wallpaper every day, and support for third-party icon packs are included, too. Finally, Microsoft says that Arrow Launcher is “lightweight” and “optimized for battery life.”
Microsoft’s new launcher looks like an interesting offering that aims to make the things that you want — recently used apps and contacts, recent app downloads — readily available to you. Arrow Launcher also offers a bit of customizability by letting to rearrange the pages and use third-party icon packs, but it doesn’t appear to be quite as deeply customizable as some other third-party launchers. The main draw of Arrow Launcher appears to be