Everything the launcher does, in plain words. Where the live demo can show you, there's a button to try it.
Start here
First launch
The setup wizard runs as a short chat. It asks for two permissions and explains each one before sending you to Android's settings:
Usage Access
Lets HoneyCrisp sort your apps by how much you use them. Ring and Rotary Dial need it to pick which apps to show.
Notification Access
Puts unread counts on your glass icons and fills the notification wing.
At the end, the wizard asks you to make HoneyCrisp your default home app. Press your Home button afterwards and you'll land on the globe.
Bring an existing layout
If you've exported a HoneyCrisp layout file before, the wizard can import it so your groups, pages and settings come back as they were. Later, you'll find the same option under Profiles and layouts.
The home screen
The globe. All your apps on a sphere you can spin. Tilting your phone moves the light on the glass.
The dock. A glass pill holding your page gems, the master orb in the middle, and your voice assistant.
Status and notification orbs. Tap to open live device stats or the notification wing.
The whiteboard tab. A drawer on the left edge for links, notes and photos you save.
Flat pages
Behind the globe sits a set of ordinary flat home-screen pages for shortcuts and widgets. Press Home to split the globe open and see them (see Home button).
Gestures
Quick-stroke gestures (the check mark and caret) must be drawn in one stroke in under half a second, so slow panning never triggers them by accident. They're ignored while apps are hovering.
Tap an app
Opens it.
Hold an app
Opens its menu (App menus). Keep holding and drag to move it.
Hold empty space
Opens the layout menu, where you switch between Globe, Honeycrisp, Ring and Rotary Dial.
Home button
First press closes anything open: search, hovering apps, a peeking widget or the status panel. With nothing open, it splits the globe to show your flat pages. Press Home again, or Back, to close the split.
Two fingers up or down
Swipe two fingers up anywhere to bring up search. As you type, the globe spins matching apps to the front. Swipe two fingers down to put it away.
Two-finger twist
Twist clockwise (about a sixth of a turn) to open Clock mode. Twist back the other way to close it. See Clock mode.
Swipe in from the left edge
Slides out the whiteboard drawer.
Hold the right edge
Press and hold the right edge for a quarter second, then slide to jump through the alphabet. Matching apps light up and everything else fades.
Draw a check mark
A quick down-then-up stroke switches between the Globe and Ring. From Rotary Dial, it goes back to Ring.
Draw a caret
In Ring or Rotary Dial, a quick up-then-down stroke switches between the two.
Clock mode and alarms
Clock mode replaces the globe with a sun at the centre and your apps as planets orbiting on separate rings for hours, minutes and seconds.
Tap the Set Alarm orb.
Slide one finger left or right to scrub the hands to the time you want.
Tap the orb again to save the alarm.
Layouts
Hold any empty space to open the layout menu. The switch animates: your apps scatter outward and regroup in the new shape.
Globe
Every app on a sphere. Drag to spin it in any direction; flick and it keeps rolling. Icons on the far side are hidden until they come round.
Your 15 most-used apps from the last 24 hours on a vertical wheel down the right side, with space on the left for the clock. Spin it hard and it stretches, then settles. The dock hides in Ring, so favorites and UFO hover aren't available.
Needs Usage Access. If it's missing, HoneyCrisp takes you to the setting.
The same apps as Ring, laid flat in a circle that you turn side to side like a dial. Draw a caret in Ring to switch to it.
Not in the web demo yet.
Favorites and UFO hover
Lift a group of apps
Each gem in the dock holds a group of favorite apps. Tap a gem and the globe turns to that group; the apps then lift off and hover in a honeycomb in front of the rest, which dims away. Favorite apps have a colored glow on the globe so you can spot them.
To land them, do any of these:
Tap the same gem again.
Double-tap empty space.
Tap the master orb.
Press Home.
Tapping a different gem swaps one group for the other. Tapping the master orb when nothing is hovering lifts the favorites of whichever part of the globe is facing you.
If the page a gem opens has a widget on it, that widget slides up from the bottom while the apps hover, so you can glance at it without splitting the globe. Press Home to put it away.
Organizing apps and pages
Group apps on the globe
Hold an app until you feel a short buzz, then drag it anywhere over the globe and let go. It joins the nearest group: top, middle or bottom of the sphere.
Put an app on a flat page
Hold an app, drag it onto one of the gems in the dock, and let go. It leaves the globe and appears on that gem's page.
Remove or uninstall
While you're dragging, two bands appear:
Top band (red)
Removes the item from your layout. The app stays installed.
Bottom band (orange)
Opens Android's uninstall screen for that app.
Pages and widgets
Hold empty space on a flat page to open Workspace settings. From there you can:
Add widget from your phone's widget list.
Add solar clock, a clock that shades with the real time of day.
Add page or remove page (only empty pages can be removed).
Change the panel color and opacity, and change or remove your wallpaper.
To resize a widget, hold it, tap the gear, and use the width and height steppers.
App menus
Holding an app opens its menu in one of two styles. Choose in Settings with Classic context menu.
Fan menu (default)
Wedges fan out from the icon, tilted to match it on the globe.
Up to six wedges show at once. If there are more actions, the last wedge becomes More; tapping it turns the fan to the next set.
Wedges with more options inside have a small bar along their outer edge.
Rest your finger on a wedge and a label appears, so you know what it does before you let go.
Classic list
A plain vertical list that drops down over the screen, for when you'd rather read than aim.
The master orb
The orb in the middle of the dock. Tap it to lift or land favorites. Hold it to open Settings.
Utilities
Custom gestures
Hold the master orb and choose Record gesture.
Draw any shape in one stroke.
Pick what it does: open an app, a phone action (notifications, quick settings, screenshot, lock screen), or a launcher action (search, split the globe, open the whiteboard).
Delete gestures in the same menu removes all of them.
Whiteboard
Swipe in from the left edge to open it. Share a link, text or photo to HoneyCrisp from any app and it lands here. Links get a preview image from the page; text shows its first three lines.
Status and notifications
Tap the top-right status orb to see battery, memory, storage, volume, brightness and weather. Turn off Lock telemetry panel in Settings to drag the stats into your own order.
Apps with new notifications appear in the notification wing with a red count. Tap one to open its notifications; type a reply straight into the card, or swipe a card sideways to dismiss it.
Settings
Hold the master orb to open Settings.
Appearance
Setting
What it does
Icon scale
Size of every app icon.
Globe radius
How far apart apps sit on the globe.
Glow size, Glow intensity
Reach and brightness of the colored glow behind favorite icons.
UFO flight speed
How fast hovering apps lift off and land.
Liquid gel dock
A thicker, wetter look for the dock.
Frosted glass
Panels switch from clear to matte.
Chameleon panels
Tints panels with colors picked from your wallpaper.
Grayscale mode
Removes color from every icon.
Transparent phone
Shows your camera feed behind the apps, as if the screen were see-through. Uses more battery.
Performance
Setting
What it does
Master glint engine
The moving highlights on the glass icons.
Lens flare
The bright flash and streak when light sweeps across an icon.
Icon gravity physics
Tilt-driven lighting motion. Turn off to save battery.
Static glass lighting
Fixes highlights in one place so the phone does less work.
UFO flight visuals
Turn off to make favorites appear instantly without the flight animation.
Layout, menus and status
Setting
What it does
Projection lens
Globe, Honeycrisp grid, Ring or Rotary Dial.
Canvas density
Grid size of flat pages: Spacious (4×5), Standard (5×6), Dense (6×7), or Matrix for larger custom grids.
Snap to grid
Lines up loose icons on flat pages.
Classic context menu
Use a plain list instead of the fan menu.
System panel view
Keeps the system dashboard panel showing.
Telemetry orbs
Turns the live device stats off to save battery.
Lock telemetry panel
Stops the stats from being dragged around.
Troubleshooting
The launcher crashed and shows a recovery screen
A broken third-party widget can crash the layout. When that happens, HoneyCrisp stops on restart and shows a recovery screen instead of crashing again. Choose Safe recovery: it removes widgets and keeps your groups, layout and settings.
Ring won't open
Ring needs Usage Access. Open Android Settings, search for Usage access, select HoneyCrisp and turn it on.
No notification counts on my icons
Turn on Notification access for HoneyCrisp in Android Settings.
A check mark or caret didn't work
Draw it faster, in one stroke, in under half a second. Land any hovering apps first; quick strokes are ignored while they're up.
Battery drains faster than I'd like
In Settings, turn off Icon gravity physics and Transparent phone, and turn on Static glass lighting. Turning off Lens flare and Telemetry orbs helps a little more.
