What Makes LaunchOS Different from Other Launchpad Alternatives

I’m a bit of an organizing freak.

I arrange apps in Launchpad according to my usage habits: first page for frequently used apps, second page for work, third page for entertainment. The sorting and folders on each page are strongly tied to my life rhythm and work order. Over time, I’ve developed a very strong muscle memory—which page, which position, and I can open an app with just a quick glance, then move on to the next part of my workflow.

The moment macOS 26 removed the native Launchpad, that sense of order was instantly shattered.

I had to keep scrolling in Apps to find things; for many infrequently used apps, I didn’t even remember their names, but I originally remembered their location.

This discomfort was stronger than any new UI change. Many people felt the same way: it wasn’t that they didn’t like liquid glass or didn’t accept the new design, but that their long-formed muscle memory suddenly stopped working. So you’d see tons of users searching for:

• How to restore macOS Launchpad
• Where did Launchpad go
• How to get Launchpad back on macOS 26
• Launchpad alternative

This is exactly the background behind LaunchOS.

But from the very beginning, LaunchOS didn’t emphasize “how many more features than native,” but rather:

Get your original experience back, and on top of that, make it more comfortable. 

We’re not building a more feature-rich App Launcher.
We’re working hard to restore a familiar way of using things.

Product Philosophy One: Extreme Restoration of Experience Details

From the very beginning of the project, our goal was crystal clear:

Extreme restoration of native Launchpad’s control experience

So 80% of the time was actually spent repeatedly debugging those “details that almost no one would put in a feature list”:

• The feel and animation rhythm when dragging icons
• Whether mouse wheel page-turning matches natural scrolling habits
• Response speed of keyboard first-letter search
• Subtle feel of page-turning, positioning, and bounce-back
• Visual comfort of icon grids on large screens
• Repeated optimization of smoothness when turning pages left and right
• Repeated tuning of memory usage

These details sound trivial, but when you really only use hot corners, scroll wheel, and a few clicks and drags to open apps, they determine whether I’ll keep using this thing.

It was also during this process that we deeply appreciated Apple’s design prowess—the kind that “moistens things silently.” Many experiences you don’t normally notice until you lose them, and then you realize how incredibly uncomfortable they are.

Details aren’t add-ons. Details are the experience itself.

Product Philosophy Two: Occam’s Razor, Not Feature Stacking

During development, we actually had the ability to expose tons of system APIs as settings:

Icon size, spacing, animation speed, arrangement method, pagination rules… all could be made adjustable.

But we deliberately didn’t do that.

Because it violated a principle we strongly believe in:

Users shouldn’t have to do a lot of settings for a tool that should work out of the box. 

Handing all parameters to users looks like “high freedom,” but essentially it’s shoving the responsibility of design decisions onto users.

We prefer to use lots of adaptive rules so that LaunchOS automatically presents the most suitable state under different resolutions, screen sizes, and usage patterns. This is actually closer to Apple’s original thinking when they made Launchpad.

Of course, this process was quite a tug-of-war.
We had to make many decisions for users.

But fortunately, with lots of real user feedback, we could quickly adjust. Only a small number of capabilities with truly strong demand (like custom grids, vertical scrolling) were gradually opened up.

This is the classic “Occam’s razor” principle:

We only do what’s truly necessary, not what we’re capable of doing. 

Product Philosophy Three: Beauty Isn’t Decoration, It’s a Prerequisite

I’m a designer by background, and I’m very sensitive to “ugly.”

Liquid glass is a visual upgrade in macOS 26, but it shouldn’t be overused—it should be integrated into the system language just right.

What LaunchOS does at the visual level isn’t “looking good,” but rather:

It should look like it belongs to this system. 

We strictly match:

• macOS fonts and hierarchy
• Icon sizes and grid density
• Animation rhythm and transition methods
• Intensity of liquid glass usage

So many users’ first impression when opening LaunchOS isn’t “this is a beautiful launcher,” but rather:

“This is the Launchpad I remember coming back.” 

Beauty isn’t flashy.
Beauty is not standing out.

Continuous Iteration, Not Just Finish and End

After LaunchOS’s first beta release, we didn’t rush to launch. Instead, we spent a long time repeatedly adjusting priorities and details based on real user usage feedback.

From hot corners, Logi Options+ support, scroll wheel habits, page-turning methods, to vertical scrolling, custom grids, accidental line-break optimization… the source of every update wasn’t “what else can we add,” but rather:

Where are users uncomfortable in real usage. 

This isn’t just stacking version numbers.
It’s a continuous deepening of understanding “what Launchpad is about.” During this process, we went back and forth many times. For example, we once added an accidental-touch prevention delay to hot corners, but user feedback showed this wasn’t their habit—they would flash their mouse to the corner and quickly pull it back to maximize control efficiency.

Added 2026.2.3: As of now, 20 versions have been released, about 5 versions per month.

You’ll see some reviews in the community:

“It’s almost exactly like the native Launchpad, and more comfortable.” 

This sentence means more to us than any feature list.

Summary

While many Launchpad alternatives are chasing “more features,” LaunchOS chose a harder path:

Make every simple action more comfortable than native. 

LaunchOS’s original intention wasn’t a feature-rich launcher.
It’s a tool that closely sticks to users’ muscle memory in experience, details, visuals, and operation.

Its value isn’t built up by features.
It’s polished out by details, bit by bit.

Added 2026.2: But this doesn’t mean it has few features. After iterating to this point, it includes almost all the features you need, and we’re still working hard to perfect it.