Nova Launcher, the best customizable home screen replacement app has updated to version 5.5-beta 3 with Google Pixel 2 and Android 8.1 Oreo goodies, alongside several fixes and optimizations. Nova Launcher users can now enjoy bottom Google search bar (dock search bar), Android 8.1 Oreo style popup menu, Oreo’s adaptive icon feature, notification dots and more.
With the latest beta version of Nova Launcher (5.5-beta 3), you can customize to get a look and feel of Google Pixel 2 launcher on your Android phone. Also, Adaptive icon backporting and icon reshaping has improved much. More icons are now able to be backported and also the icon reshaping is more stable in this update.
What is new in Nova Launcher 5.5 beta 3?
– Bottom search box (dock search bar)
– Android 8.1 style popup menu
– -Adaptive icon animations during drag and drop
-Improved speed of applying a new adaptive icon shape or icon theme
-Lots of under the hood fixes and optimizations
For your information, recently Action Launcher, one of the popular launcher app for Android has updated to new version with Pixel 2 features like dock search box along with other refinements. Check details here.
Below is how to enable latest features of Nova launcher, the Dock search box and Android 8.1 style popup menu in the settings menu.
– To enable dock search bar, go to Nova Settings > Dock > Searchbar in dock > select Above or Below Icons.
– To get Android 8.1 style popup menu, go to Nova Settings > Look and Feel > Popup menu > Blocks.
If you have already installed Nova launcher beta version, update it to latest version by going to Settings > Nova > Check for update. New users can download the launcher from Play store [here] or its APK file [here]. After installing the latest version, configure it to get the Pixel 2 launcher look and feel (source)
