Here’s something I bet you didn’t know (or, at least, you haven’t given it much thought before).
There are more people in the world that use iOS’s Launchpad than use the Mac’s Finder. That’s because iPhone and iPad have nearly a billion users, while the Mac, well, it’s more popular than ever, but not so mobile, and with perhaps 100-million users. Here’s how to manage the Mac’s Launchpad.
Wait! What? A Mac Launchpad?
Yes, boys and girls, guys and gals, The Mac has a launchpad that looks and works much like the launchpad on iPhone and iPad even on macOS Sierra. Click the Launchpad icon in the Mac’s Dock, and you get a screen full of icons. And, just like on iPhone and iPad, they’re a mess.
To put some much needed organization into the Mac’s version of Launchpad requires a manager app, and this one is cleverly titled Launchpad Manager.
What it does for the Mac’s version of Launchpad is much what a little manual effort does for the original Launchpad on iPhone or iPad. It lets you move around apps, rename apps, group app icons together, and a few things you can’t do on iOS.
You can delete app icons and tidy up the Launchpad screen, yes, but there’s more.
Not only can you rename apps, you can also rename app groups, organize the groups, add icons to Launchpad that OS X does not, and order apps and groups differently. Two words: Alphabetical ordering. It even does Dashboard Widgets.
App icons can be moved to another page, or to a new page, and Launchpad Manager can do one very important thing I’d like to see in iOS– save layouts, and load saved layouts. Launchpad Manager comes in two versions. One with all the features unlocked, and a free version with some limited features so you can try out the basics first.
All of that said, I have a couple of beefs. First, the app is named– as of today’s download– Launchpad Manager Yosemite. Yes, it works on El Capitan and seems OK even on macOS Sierra, but still. Second, check out the developer’s website and you’ll see screen shots dating back a few years beyond the Mac’s new flat design. Somebody hasn’t bothered to update the app’s name or the website to get with the current program. That’s a pity, because Launchpad Manager is an improvement over the Mac’s Launchpad and the Launchpad for iPhone and iPad.
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