Sure, we’ve seen tonnes of launchers being released to the Android Market – now known as the Play Store, since I don’t know, Android 1.5 Cupcake?
SAO Launcher however, gives fans of the anime a little something to feast on. If you watched SAO – that’s Sword Art Online – which is only decent for the first half of the series and downhill after that, they bring down a menu within the virtual reality game by swiping their two fingers of their left hand downwards. The menu was simple – in fact, it looked like one of Mac OS X’s view on the Finder, where everything flows to the right side. There was some sound effect where to all those who watched SAO, definitely recognizable by just the sound of it.
First off, the launcher itself is not really a launcher – more like a popup co-launcher rather than a full-fledged one, based on my personal preference. You can bring down the SAO launcher by swiping the top left or right edge of the screen, just like the anime.
And there’s the sound effect too!
Bringing the complete menu down…
You’ll see something awfully familiar, as this is designed exactly like the anime.
From top to bottom according to the anime, you get Settings, Stats, Contacts, Chat, Location, and the last one is indeed an addition by the app developers, the app drawer.
In the settings menu, you get to access a bunch of settings on how you want to bring the launcher out, and also a shortcut to Android’s settings.
At the Audio settings is of course, to enable or disable the sound effect made by the SAO launcher whenever interacted with.
The Stats menu indeed brings out the exact same design as it did in the anime – and showed my stats too!
I’m a level 9999 beater! Better believe me, because my level is so high that it didn’t even show up on the Stats menu. I’m equipped with a bunch of apps too!
Seriously though, the Stats menu is indeed with the same design as in the app, but the equipment have been changed to app shortcuts, and every other things have been changed to the phone’s RAM, storage space, phone number and whatnot. I think this is a nice addition to the app, since we’re all so concerned about how to clear the game.
The Contacts menu brings up the entire list of contacts saved in your phone, where you can directly call or send a message off. The Chat icon brings up your list of SMS too, and doesn’t does much after that. I think that both Contacts and Chat is indeed useful, since you can sort who to put way at the top of the Contacts lists for speed and ease.
Up next is obviously the location, which obviously tells your current location.
I’m surprised that the developer actually added this feature, as it is indeed very important if you’re on a phone call and you’re in a hurry to tell where you exactly are. It shows your location on Google Maps, and also tells you the address of the location you’re at. Handy!
Lastly you have the App Drawer, which I find totally impractical.
Like I said, it’s impractical. You have the entire list of apps here. You can however filter out some apps so that they won’t clutter up this menu, but why not just use the Stats menu’s shortcuts? Aren’t those meant to have your apps launched without searching through a list of apps?
In conclusion, I do find that this app is useful – only in a certain way. The Stats, Contacts and Location is definitely useful, since it does what it does, in a very efficient way too. The problem I find it annoying though is how the SAO launcher is brought up. By swiping, it works sometimes, and doesn’t work sometimes. The swiping area is interfering the the Post button on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or whatever it is that put the Next button on the top right corner.
All in all, the shortcuts on the Stats is definitely something that I will use to trim down a bunch of shortcuts on my homescreen. There’s also no need to browse through a whole list of contacts since there’s a customizable Contacts list too.
SAO Launcher is practical in its own way – but not completely. I’ll definitely recommend a try here, which is of course, free. There’s a Pro version which removes the ads for just $1.99, approximately RM6.36.
Oh – if you’re worried, you can logout from the game in the Settings menu.
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