The best Android launchers and interface tools of 2015

If you put enough time and effort, they say, you can tailor every Android phone to serve your unique interests and interface layout wishes, and third-party launchers like Nova, Apex and the like, have proved it time and again. Every once in a while, a new launcher appears that promises a paradigm shift in interacting with our mobile devices, utilizing innovative gesture-based or side-sliding launch tech, and some of them are even donning amazing graphics and extra functionality.
Microsoft Arrow Launcher
FEATURED VIDEO
A swipe in the other direction brings you to a list of people from your contacts list that you recently got in touch with via phone, email or text. It also provides you with a list of frequently used contacts, as well. You can also swipe up to see more options including additional dock shortcuts. The app drawer is posted alphabetically, and you can use your finger to slide down a list of letters to reach an app faster.
Designed around a scrolling list of cards, the SF Launcher 2 is one of the few that does the Material Design and Android 5.0 Lollipop theming right, unlike many other launcher efforts. You've got a dozen cityscape headers that change based on the time of day, hence the SF moniker, and all the basic app and widget launcher functionality is here in a card format.
Still, the new SF Launcher kid doesn't bog itself down with meaningless extra functionality or fancy, but excruciatingly slow to render graphics. Besides the cityscape headers, there are light and dark themes, and the way to manage the homescreen cards is super easy, too.
TapDeck - Wallpaper Discovery
KISS Launcher
Requiring a minimal amount of memory to run, the KISS (for "keep it simple, stupid") launcher has nothing to do with the excesses of the ancient rock band. It takes less than 100kb, is optimized for minimal toll on the battery, and bets simply on search to find anything you need, without resorting to elaborate functions and widgets.
One Launcher
One Launcher is less than 2MB in size, yet features real-time lockscreen notifications, its own tailored weather, clock and calendar widgets, as well as a bunch of curated high-res wallpapers. It bets on simplicity and speed, with numerous transition effects that promise not to lag, even on older Android gear.
Snowball - Smart Notifications
Snowball aims to put an end to the flood of notifications you are bombarded with every day, letting through only the ones you would really want to check up on, and allowing you to reply to your Facebook, Twitter, texts and other messages inline, routing your answer automatically through the respective app afterwards.
It takes some tutoring to catch up, as you have to either swipe away or authorize the notifications from each app for Snowball, but after the learning period it's smooth sailing, and a much needed break from the notifications spam.
Yandex Launcher
Yandex Launcher has all the basics like app and folder categorization, widget and homescreen grid layout management, and security functions, but it also throws in some extras, like letting you use color schemes to search for your apps. Check out how it works in the promo video below - we don't know about you, but we seem to remember what color is the app icon easier than its placement in the app drawer or the folder on the homescreen.
Launchify- Quick App Shortcuts
Launchify places your favorite app shortcuts right in your notification bar and lock screen for quick access without obstructing the view, as simple as that. The tool can even recommend the right app for the time of day and the place you are at (home, work, or in the car).
Scout Launcher
The Scout launcher goes deeper into the timely snippets of information available to you at any given moment. The gist of it is in the short video below - Scout will have suggestions to you from the moment you wake up (weather, breakfast places), and throughout the day, digging up relevant apps you might have even forgotten you've installed on your phone, based on the occasion and location, too.
Thankfully, it doesn't try to guess everything seamlessly like Google Now, but actually asks about your work and home locations, for instance, upon initial setup. Then it proceeds organizing your apps in groups (called "spaces") on separate screens automatically, though you can revamp those at will, too.
The "cards" it will use for popular tasks are actually standalone entities - you don't need to have YouTube installed to enjoy the YouTube card, for instance, but can have the full functionality and interaction within Scout itself. Some of the services offered include Weather, Calendar, Reddit, Uber, Yelp, SoundCloud, YouTube, Notifications, Lyrics, Events by Seatgeek, ESPN CricInfo, and contextual app recommendations - with many more to be added when Scout on with its development.
The "cards" it will use for popular tasks are actually standalone entities - you don't need to have YouTube installed to enjoy the YouTube card, for instance, but can have the full functionality and interaction within Scout itself. Some of the services offered include Weather, Calendar, Reddit, Uber, Yelp, SoundCloud, YouTube, Notifications, Lyrics, Events by Seatgeek, ESPN CricInfo, and contextual app recommendations - with many more to be added when Scout on with its development.