Thursday, April 26, 2012
CrApp of the Week: Samsung’s Pure Breeze is still a pure bust
Last September, I took a look at Samsung's home screen replacement called Pure Breeze Launcher. At the time, I went easy on them. It was pretty bad when it first came out, but I praised Samsung nonetheless for "thinking outside the box" (ugh). But that was then. And this is now. Pure Breeze Launcher has been tweaked, updated to work with Android 4 and boasts a "new modern user experience." Too bad it still sucks.
The theory behind Pure Breeze Launcher isn't all that terrible. A minimal way to keep all your apps organized, giving you constant access to what you use the most. But the execution is so poor, I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out what the hell Samsung is really going for.
If I had to describe Pure Breeze Launcher in one sentence? It's like Samsung took Apple's always-open-app-drawer approach, added the ability to make folders into an entire page and color coded it all. If I had to elaborate? Actually, one sentence is fine. There's nothing to this launcher. Some frosted glass accents, crazy names for everything (the Kite?!) and a whole lot of bugs.
Even though it says Pure Breeze Launcher was updated for Android 4, it barely works on my Nexus S. Icons keep disappearing. I can't scroll between pages, err groups, err the Kite. No wait… it didn't start me off in the Kite. It started me off in the all apps page. So how do I get to the Kite… OK, press home again. So then to get to my groups… No, that doesn't make sense, maybe I… Well my groups are supposed to be here… What?! There's no icons, but pressing this blank area takes me to my groups… Well then how do I… SCREW IT.
But hey! You can have wallpapers now! Samsung is kind enough to start you off with a wallaper of a guy wearing some Adidas jersey shorts and an athletic shirt (at least I think that's the PC term for "wife-beater") fishing off a pier. Now that's art.
Look, I really wanted to like Pure Breeze Launcher. I swear I did. The idea of the Kite, an endlessly scrollable area where you can throw apps and widgets and shortcuts sounds kinda cool. But it just doesn't work. If fact, it drove me partially insane. Which is why I probably shouldn't do this, but if you want, you can download the Lite version of Pure Breeze below. Just remember, I can't be held responsible for any medical expenses incurred from trying to remove the memory of this thing from your brain.
