Great suggestion on the “wizard”/ guide on first launch. The launcher starts a bit empty otherwise.

As for the app sorting, is there a reason why you prefer a permanent sort choice (by date)?

App shortcuts are definitely on my to-dos, and they will be supported as swipe/ gesture actions as well.

It will be priced very competitively, as it’s a personal project and I do not need to pay anyone else ;) Nova’s model before it’s bought over was great. i still recall being part of those who paid $0.10 for it. The Google group is how Google currently handles closed beta sign-ups, not very intuitive, I agree.

Thank you and look forward to hearing any issues you faced

I’ll share here if I open source this or a variant of this

Do let me know any issues you encounter

Used the plural of Octopus, perhaps I should go with Octopus Launcher instead?

Not in the immediate future, but I have been thinking about this since I wrote the first bits of code.

Fair comment. I do not have trackers that may pose a privacy issue, and it will remain so.

I plan to follow the model of Niagara and Nova launcher, but without recurring subscriptions and tracking. Closed beta testers will receive free codes to unlock the full version, so they get to enjoy all features they have now.

Simple Launcher - basic but gets stuff done