For 2.1, Tag Home(Launcher)

Summary

You might think there are already enough homescreen replacements out there in the world of Android—but apparently there’s still room for more. There are so many desktop alternatives on the Market, and sometimes it’s hard to get the bigger picture. My current favorite is the Helix Launcher; I’ve been totally satisfied by this little guy for some time now. Read on and you’ll find out why Tag Home might just be taking its place soon.

Tag Home allows you to decide how many homescreens you want to have. You can then choose between three, seven or even nine homescreens. However, Tag Screen provides a very useful feature which may make it redundant to have more than five screens.

You can file all of your apps within the App Drawers using the Tags, some of which are already pre-established. You can change the Tags as well as delete the already existing ones or create new ones. You can have up to 32 Tags under which you can then file your apps, and you’ll be able to access them hassle-free within the App Drawers which you’ll find in the lower half of your screen. If you do create 32 Tags it may take a moment before you can access the Tag you’re after, seeing as approximately only 4 Tags can be displayed in the lower margin (depends on how long the Tag’s name is). You can access the other Tags by wiping your finger across the screen. That being said, I anticipate that’s it’s unlikely that you’ll be needing 32 Tags.

You can also put individual Tags onto your homescreen, as well as decide in which order not only the Tags but also the apps should be displayed within the App Drawer.

There are four buttons located in the lower half of the screen. You can decide their function, and will able to access the app the button is designated for from every screen.

Tag Home also supports Live Wallpaper, which not every homescreen replacement provides.

All in all, Tag Home provides everything you’d expect a homescreen replacement to offer, and a whole lot more.
 

After you’ve installed Tag Home, you can access your new desktop by clicking on Home, as well as set it up as your standard homescreen, if you so desire.
The individual screens are then displayed in the upper part of the screen as so-called Dots. So, if you have 5 screens you’ll see 5 Dots which are color coded.

You can switch screens by either wiping your finger across the screen, or by clicking on the appropriate Dot.

In order to designate an app to one of the buttons at the bottom of the screen, just click on a button for a long time and then select the app.

When you click on the Menu button followed by Option you’ll find a few basic settings for your homescreen. You can choose how many screens you want displayed (3, 5, 7, 9), you can choose the size of the Dots or select to not have them displayed at all (“Big”, “Small”, “None”), you can choose the degree of transparency of certain elements on your desktop, you’ll be given a few options as far as Orientation is concerned (Auto, Portrait Only, Landscape Only), and you can access the Help function. Whew. You’ll find information related to Tag Home’s features under Help.

When you open up your App Drawer you’ll find the All category. This will show you all of your apps. You’ll find all the pre-existing Tags in the lower half of the screen. When you click on these you’ll find the apps they contain. By scrolling down the screen you’ll find the following categories:

All
Google
Communicate
Multimedia
Internet
Games
Carrier
Utilities
None

In order to make changes, click on Home followed by Edit Mode. You can then click on an app and file it under one or several Tags, as well as designate its Priority by regulating the bar. All of your apps will then be displayed according to Priority, which established the order in which they are shown.

You will then find the following options under Menu:

Tag add
Tag remove
Tag rename
Tag order
Tag to folder
Executive mode

The Executive mode therefore allows you to organize and display your list of apps according to your preferences.

Bottom line:
Tag Home allows you to give your apps a good spring cleaning—but you do need to take a bit of time in order to get the best results. I was a bit frustrated that there’s no way of doing a backup of the settings, so if you reset your phone (or, heaven forbid, something were to go awry), you’d have to start all over again. But despite this issue I’m quite happy with Tag Home, and think it may very well replace my current fave, Helix Launcher.
 

Absolutely no problems with Tag Home on the Milestone. Switching screens is really fast, but scrolling through the apps is a bit tedious. That being said, once you’ve filed the apps under the Tags you don’t really need to worry about that any longer.

Tag Home can be downloaded for free from the Android Market.