What is a launcher? Your Android’s home screen, and how duqe changes it
Every time you unlock your phone, what you see first isn’t really “Android” itself: it’s usually the manufacturer’s launcher (the home screen). Most people never change it and never chose the one they use, and yet it arguably shapes quite a lot of how you interact with your phone. Here’s what it is, how to change it and what duqe’s does differently.
What is a launcher?
You could say that the launcher is the app that draws your phone’s home screen: the icons, the folders, the widgets, the wallpaper and the other extras each manufacturer adds. It’s what you see when you unlock your phone and every time you press the home button.
Your phone comes with one built in (Google’s on Pixel phones, for example, or Samsung’s or Xiaomi’s on theirs), but on Android the launcher is just an app like any other, and you can swap it for a different one, the same way you’d switch browsers or keyboards. Changing it doesn’t delete your apps, your photos or your data. The only thing that changes is how everything is displayed.
Why it matters
It’s the screen you’ll see more than any other all day, and the starting point for your attention every time you pick up your phone, so it has a big say in where that attention goes. If it’s a grid of colorful icons with little red badges, it’s offering you something every time you look at it. That’s why some launchers do the opposite and show as little as possible.
duqe is a launcher too, but it starts from a slightly different philosophy than traditional or generic minimalist launchers: instead of “what do I take away?” we built the design around “what do I want to find when I unlock my phone?”
What is duqe?
As you probably know by now, duqe is an Android launcher designed to help you get organized. Instead of a grid of icons fighting for your attention, when you unlock your phone you see the date, the time and a summary of your day: how many tasks you have due today, how many events and, only if there are any, how many tasks have slipped your mind.
Below that are five pages you swipe through: your views (with the Inbox at the top), your calendar, your projects, your habits and the archive of everything you’ve already done. It draws on different approaches to organization and self-improvement (but steers clear of the kind that turns you into a slave to yourself).
In short: duqe’s home screen is your organization system, not a list of apps.
So where are my apps? The drawer
Without the usual grid of icons, it’s a fair question: how do I open WhatsApp? At the bottom there are four buttons, with no icons, just a three-letter label (PHO, WHA…) that you choose. One of them will always be the app drawer.
The drawer is the list of your apps. The difference from a regular launcher is that duqe’s drawer doesn’t dump in everything you have installed: you’ll only find the apps you add yourself. The rest stay on your phone, they aren’t deleted, but they’re out of sight. It’s a small decision you make once, and it changes what you see every day. Say you want to spend less time on Instagram, so you just leave it out of your app drawer. It’s amazing what a difference simply not having an app in front of you can make.
How to switch to duqe
- Install duqe. It installs like any other app.
- Set it as your home screen. When you press the home button, Android will usually ask which launcher you want to use: pick duqe and “Always.” If it doesn’t ask, go to Settings > Apps > Default apps > Home app (the exact name varies by brand).
- Choose which apps you want one tap away. The four buttons at the bottom and the drawer are yours: you decide what goes in.
- If it’s not for you, switch back. In the same menu, choose your previous launcher. You don’t lose anything.
duqe doesn’t turn your phone into a dumbphone
duqe isn’t a dumbphone and it doesn’t lock your phone: if you put Instagram on one of the four buttons, that’s where it’ll be. We’re not going to decide for you either: your habits are yours alone, and those are decisions you should make based on what matters to you. All duqe does is help you stick to your decision: you’ll use the apps you don’t care about less, without losing any of the tools a phone puts at your fingertips.
