Howdy y'all,

Hope you all had a wonderful day, got some free time today and wanted to share some of the new features/refinements/concepts in the upcoming versions.

Key features I've been working on:

1. True foldable support, not just a canvas cut (outer screen being the left half on inner), but separate states that supports different layouts
2. A requested feature to have the option to hide dock, and bring it up with a short swipe, auto hides after a few seconds (requested feature from u/demicky250274)
3. UI/UX overhaul for widget picker, placement, config etc.
4. Notification preview in hub by long pressing on an item, shows a preview, the highlight here is I was able to show a key snapshot of the event from Google Homes etc, that has given me a run for the money...
5. Message/Email history preview, for when you get multiple messages from the same source, it would show you the message counts and will let you see all the messages in dialog preview, this involved data model change, took a while to figure out the bugs
6. Settings, added back gesture support to go back to parent level, position retention, in custom tag section the upper portion would auto scroll up to let you edit easier (from feedback, thanks u/cliffr39)
7. More Metro UI like live tile, color tune, spring animation visual, slide in/out visual for hub opening/closing
8. Option to turn on haptic feedback in the launcher

And much more....

Here's how to join closed beta on Google Play (excuse Google Play as it may have some delay before showing you the app after joining the group) -

First join the closed beta testing Google group here:

https://groups.google.com/g/droidberry-launcher-google-play-testers

Then find the app on Google Play:

Join on Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.droidberry.launcher

Join on Web - https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.droidberry.launcher

The closed beta is running very well with all the testers, I appreciate every single one of you! We can expect this to go production on Google Play very soon!

Enjoy the rest of your day, and enjoy Droidberry! Say hi to your four leg friends for me.

Working on some really cool features that bring together BBOS and windows Metro UI's live tile!

More to come!

Hello folks,

Finally I got a version that passes my own QC controls and I think this is a good time to bring it to the beta phase, I will try releasing a few versions to test out bugs and try on new features before bringing it to goole play officially, but this is a big step forward from the preview proof of concept for my weekend project, enjoy!

Github release

beta v1.0 changelog:

✨ New

- App Drawer now has an option to show app names under icons — toggle it in Settings

🐛 Fixed

- Gmail notification behavior in the Hub is fixed: opening a notification directly in Gmail or the Hub no longer wipes all your other notifications. The Hub is now the single source of truth.

- Gmail's "mark as read" ghost notification no longer gets stuck in the Hub

⚙️ Improvements

- At a Glance: day-of-week label respects your system theme (with a subtle tint for contrast)

- At a Glance: slightly dimmed to reduce distraction

- At a Glance: smarter weather app launch — works on more phones now

- Hub: new scale options — bump the Hub (and Active Frame Hub) to 110% or 130% if you want it bigger

- Active Frame Hub on the home screen got a small visual polish pass

As always, feel free to post here or utilize the feedback tool from Droidberry Settings to give me your feedback and/or feature request, donation is greatly appreciated but no mandatory. Happy Wednesday!

Howdy y'all,

Since there are a lot of questions regarding if AI did this (would be nice since I can just use it wouldn't it lol), I want to share with you all my plan for the upcoming V1.1. I'm running it on my own phone right now and it is a day and night difference since there are a lot of changes to improve performance, it is way more fluid and snappier and power efficient. I had to tweak some caching logic and resource retrieval process.

I work a full time job and build websites for friends on the side, and have to take care of my 2 puppies and family (2 year old, go figure lol), only have so much time everyday after everyone's in bed to code, so bear with me!

First I'll give you an AI refined version of my notebook so it doesn't hurt your eyes:

📋 To Do

Feature: Expand hub tile to show latest notification from Messages + Email

Feature: Haptic feedback with toggle to enable/disable

Feature: Update notification or go to Google Store directly

Refinement: Long press app icon to open menu for App Info, Uninstall, etc.

Bug: Back button in settings is black and hard to see; does not respect system back gesture to navigate to parent level

✅ Done

Feature: App drawer keyboard open and enter to open first hit

Feature: Move search bar to the bottom

Feature: Refine widget UI

Feature: Tap on At a Glance to open applications

Feature: Reply and view items in hub center

Feature: Icon work tag

Feature: Change icon individually

Feature: Move "Clear All" button down in hub

Feature: Backup and restore

Feature: Google Feed

Refinement: Let user choose whether to use layout lock

Refinement: Weather/battery rerender logic

Refinement: Keyboard default open in reply UI

Bug: Widget edit long press also registers as a tap

Bug: Widget long press doesn't show available options to edit config

Bug: Setting screen background

Bug: Back home screen rerendering issue

Bug: Tag in hub doesn't move with swipe gesture

Bug: Double notification from Gmail

And now my personal well designed story board is attached.

I'll try my best to keep my pace on working the fixes and features because I myself daily drive this as well so I need it to be good.

Now for the haters, yes this is my first android project and I was learning Kotlin and android API for the first hour or so when I started it. So laugh at all you want. I'm a full software engineer and my tech stack is mainly Java (sprintboot, maven etc.) and JavaScript/Typescript (React, Angular, with CRACO, Vite etc. if you also count in the old jQuery days lol), so switching to Kotlin with Jetpack Compose is not that hard for me. Of course I'm gonna use copilot to help me speed things up, no one would type out each single line themselves. If you do you have my ultimate respect!

Cheers!

🫐 Droidberry Launcher

Github

A feature-rich Android home-screen launcher built for phones, tablets, and foldable devices, featuring a BlackBerry-style Hub — a single, unified inbox that brings every notification on the device into one easy-to-browse, chronological stream.

Built with Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, Material 3, and Jetpack WindowManager for fold-aware layouts.

✨ Features

📬 BlackBerry-style Hub

• NotificationListenerService funnels all notifications into one unified inbox with account/category filter chips (Messages, Email, Social, Calls, etc.), just like BlackBerry OS 10.
• Chronological stream with live unread badge on the home screen shortcut.
• Tap any item to fire its original contentIntent; dismiss items individually or in bulk.
• Inline reply — compose and send a reply directly from the Hub using Notification.Action remote inputs without leaving the launcher.
• Swipe down from anywhere in the hub to close it.

📱 Foldable & Adaptive UI

• rememberFoldState() observes the hinge via WindowInfoTracker and swaps between a bottom NavigationBar (folded / flat) and a side NavigationRail (unfolded / dual-pane).
• Detects FLAT, BOOK, and TABLETOP postures.
• App-drawer grid column count adapts to screen width automatically.
• Outer screen supports up to 5 apps in the dock while inner supports up to 12.

🏠 Home Screen

• Live clock showing day of week, time, and date in one glance.
• Live weather chip — pulls current temperature and conditions from the free, keyless Open-Meteo API using the device's last-known coarse location. Automatically switches between °F and °C by locale.
• Battery indicator always visible next to the clock.
• Quick-access shortcuts to the Hub (with live unread badge) and the app drawer.
• Home-screen widgets — long-press empty space to add any Android app widget; drag to reposition, resize with a handle, and remove with a tap. Widget state persists across relaunches.
• Layout edit lock — widget and dock edits are locked automatically when the screen turns off, preventing accidental changes. Unlock explicitly from the home screen to edit again.
• Google Feed / "-1 page" — swipe the home surface to the right to open the Google app as a side panel (optional; toggle in Settings). This is not a true google feed but the Google app you have installed because Google has restricted the implementation of AIDLBridge so it is not possible to have native solutions anymore.

🔎 App Drawer & Search

• Searchable, adaptive grid of every launchable app on the device.
• Work profile support — apps from a managed/work profile are shown with their work badge, launched in the correct profile context.
• Tag filter chips — filter the drawer by user-created tags.
• Dedicated App Search screen accessible via gesture or shortcut.
• Long-press any app icon to pin it to the dock, change its icon, or access app info.

🧰 Customisable Dock

• Optional persistent dock at the bottom of every screen.
• Pin up to 5 apps (outter screen or slab phone) or 12 apps (inner screen); reorder by drag-and-drop.
• Enable or disable from Settings.

👆 Gesture Customisation

• Bind swipe up, swipe down, and double-tap on the home surface to any of:
  • Open App Drawer
  • Open Hub
  • Open Search
  • Expand Notification Shade
  • Lock Screen
  • None (disable)
• Defaults: swipe-up → App Drawer, swipe-down → Notification Shade, double-tap → Lock Screen.

🎨 Icon Pack Support

• Compatible with any icon pack that uses the standard icon pack protocol (Nova, ADW, GO, Apex, Lawnchair, and others that advertise via a theme intent).
• Per-app icon override — long-press any app in the drawer to pick a specific icon drawable from any installed icon pack, independent of the global pack.
• Revert any override back to the default with one tap.

🖼️ Look & Feel

• Global app icon size selector: 100 %, 120 %, or 150 % of the base tile size.

💾 Backup & Restore (Experimental but works most of the time)

• Launcher setting is located separately as a standalone icon in your app drawer, search for "setting" or "droidberry"
• Export all launcher settings (tags, gestures, dock, icon pack, widgets, overrides, …) to a single JSON file and save it anywhere on the device or cloud storage.
• Restore from any previously exported JSON file.

ℹ️ Other

• Runs edge-to-edge over the wallpaper with fully transparent system bars.
• Registered as a HOME app — can be set as the system default launcher.
• AccessibilityService used for the swipe-down notification-shade gesture and the lock-screen gesture; completely opt-in.
• Pressing the hardware/software Home button while already inside Droidberry snaps back to the home surface from any tab.

Hey everyone! 👋

While watching some YouTube videos about Blackberry OS and the new kids on the block like Titans phone etc, I realized how much I missed using my BBs. Tried to find some launchers I could use but nothing satisfied my OCD. I said damn it I'll write one myself then. 3 days later here we are, let me introduce you Droidberry Launcher!

It combines a minimal launcher aesthetic with a unified Hub tile directly on your home screen.

🎥 Key Features in Preview v1.0:

📬 Live Notification Hub Tile: A single, chronological stream for all your incoming notifications (messages, emails, socials, calls) right on your home screen.

💬 Direct In-Line Replies: Reply to actionable messages directly from the Hub tile without needing to launch the app.

📂 Work Profile & Tagging: Full work profile support and custom tag-based app drawer organization.

📱 Foldable & Tablet Native: Features adaptive layouts that seamlessly shift between bottom navigation bars (folded/phones) and side rails (unfolded/tablets).

👆 Custom Gestures & Dock: Built-in gesture engine (swipe search, expand shade, double-tap lock) and a dynamic drag-and-drop dock.

🎨 Customizations: Supports custom icon packs, per-app icon overrides, Android widgets, and one-file JSON backup/restore.

❓ Need Your Input on the Home Screen Layout!

Right now, the home screen has an "Apps" tile next to the Hub. However, since the gesture-activated quick-search makes the app tile redundant, I'm planning to refine the layout for v1.1.

Which direction would you prefer?

Full-width expanded Hub tile (shows a live message preview + multi-category badges like 📧 2 💬 1).

or

Dynamic Active Frame (shifts automatically between live Media Controls, Calendar Agenda, or Quick Action Toggles).

📥 Download & Test (GitHub Release)

APK Download: Droidberry Launcher preview-v1.0 on GitHub

GitHub release

Imgur galary

Requirements: Android 10+ (Note: Requires Notification Access permission on first launch so the Hub tile can read and reply to notifications).

I'd love to hear your feedback, edge-case bug reports, and thoughts on the roadmap!

Got the original color for my 17 PM. Came in yesterday and I’m impressed! Very light weight and relatively thin for a leather case, only 39g (yes it was measured).

I had every gen of apple leather case and it did go downhill after probably iPhone 13? What I hate the most about the newer gen’s was the coating. Thick layer made the case feels like fake leather. The coating on the case though is good and thin which I like since it would let patina happen sooner. It literally started softening up on day 1.

Did some buffering last night with only microfiber to wear off the coating a bit and applied a bit coconut oil today and then buffered a bit.

Also, Q is a very cool and chill dude!