Starting from this week, I’m going to regularly unveil a specific eelo feature we’re working one.

As you know, eelo’s purpose is to deliver a full-featured operating system that is offering way better respect of user’s data privacy. In this respect we’re specifically removing any piece of Android that is sending personal data to Google.

I’m also conscious that eelo will benefit from a large user adoption (you know: Mom, Dad, children and friends…) only if it’s attractive enough: it should offer the best possible user experience, and a great user interface.

One piece of software we needed to redevelop from scratch is the launcher. This is the main graphical interface that offers a way to start and organize applications.

Prototypes of our BlissLauncher were unveiled during eelo’s initial crowdfunding campaign. Thanks to its success, we were able to increase our development effort on this launcher, and now it is offering new features. Here they are!

Grouping and ungrouping icons

An application icon can be “merged” with another one to make an application group, that can be named. We have improved this feature with the capability to have several views, which means that you can have a lot of icons in one group:

eelo BlissLauncher: grouping/ungrouping application icons

BlissLauncher search

The left view is traditionally where you can search content and access several widgets: weather, news updates…

We’ve replaced the default “Google-based” search by a call to eelo search, which is a meta search engine implementation (beta!) based on Searx, with full respect of user’s privacy. And we’re now working on the widget features.

eelo BlissLauncher search, with privacy!

BlissLauncher: application deletion and more

Uninstalling an application should be easy, now it is! Just press an application icon, wait for the “minus” badge to appear, confirm, and you are done!

And it wasn’t enough: we thought that it would be convenient to add a notification badge to application icons when a notification arrives. But we made it green, because notifications should be informational, not anxiogenic.

eelo BlissLauncher app deletion

And the little details…

In BlissLauncher, the calendar icon now displays the correct date, dynamically:

 

And the clock icon displays the time dynamically as well:

BlissLauncher clock icon: look at the clock needle…

Next time

Next time I’ll probably show you our user data synchronization feature, that you can use to synchronize several device contents using safe hosting services.

Support eelo!

We’re doing a smartphone operating system in the public interest. Supporting eelo is the best way to make eelo a great success an offer a real, independent, alternative mobile OS to users.

What you can do to support the project:

• clap for this article!
• spread the word… Internet forums, social media, email, … talk about eelo 🙂
• become a backer and get a smartphone with eelo as a gift
• donate some money to the project
• support my full-time engagement on eelo
• become a contributor (developer, …)

Sincerely,

Gaël