We don’t know what’s the reason behind Samsung launching a home replacement android app — aka Launcher app — but if it’s free, cool and exciting, we’re all in for this. The developer, Samsung San Jose Mobile Lab, just released an home launcher app on android market, called the Pure Breeze, which gets you a flying UI that makes apps easy to access from anywhere and stay organized.
While the Pure breeze is receiving mixed reviews around the web — and an avg rating of just 3 stars on the android market — I’ve found it to my liking. First off, it would take you some time to settle with Pure Breeze. Not only because your home screen has been completely revamped now, but also because it enables new features and ways-to-do stuff that you’ve never done so far.
For the last month or two, I’ve been using a very cool app, SwipePad (free) to make the most out of android’s multitasking. Using SwipePad, I was able to open a new app without closing my current app, or pressing the home button for that matter, and return back with just back key. SwipePad is a great tool and has been receiving raving reviews both on the market and off the market but I feel, with full respect to SwipePad, Pure Breeze does SwipePad’s work even better — Pure Breeze is in fact full-blown multitasking enabler which lets you work seamlessly between apps, widgets, etc.
In SwipePad, one would define the region and simply swipe over the defined region anytime (whether in midst of app or simple on home screen) to get a pop-up screen with links to 12 apps/shortcuts (space for more apps/shortcuts and widgets support, etc available via paid add-ons). Pressing the defined region requires minimal care but it’s error-prone and sometime, disturbing. While on Pure Breeze you drag the apps to special ‘Kite’ page (can add widgets too) and simply press home button on phone to get the Kite page as pop-up, wherefrom you can select the app/widget you want to switch to. Plus, on the main screen of Pure Breeze, you can create app folders to classify apps category-wise — which is okay. The coolest feature of the Pure Breeze is its Kite page which allows effortless multitasking.
The downside with Pure Breeze is: it no longer feels like android, and rather gives a feeling of using a UI that’s best defined as a mix of Windows Phone 7 (the Kite page of Pure Breeze), iOS (the main screen where all apps are there, albeit in vertical flow) and WebOS (grouped apps reminds of webos’s stacks to me). Now, as an avid android user, I’ve come to not like it within a matter of minutes — but I’ll stick to Pure Breeze for some more days, for sure. Plus, there are no wallpapers (Live and static), no home screens either, etc which further takes you away from android lively experience.
All in all, Pure Breeze is worth a try. It’s available in two versions: Free (lite) and Paid ($2). The free version limits the number of apps you can put in the kite while paid version removes that.
Don’t forget to share your thoughts about the Pure Breeze home replacement app with us, in comments below.
Also, check out this video first if you’re not feeling too keen to try it straightaway.
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