CyanogenMod has always been one of the most popular aftermarket ROMs for Android phones, and with the launch of Ice Cream Sandwich, that does not seem set to change any time soon. The developers have released a sample of their work on a launcher at the XDA Developers forums.
The launcher, identified as "Trebuchet", is destined to appear in the Cyanogen builds of Ice Cream Sandwich, but can be tried outside of the ROM now. It is still only in alpha, however, so caution should be taken before setting the launcher as your default. Since launchers are one of the easier parts of the Android OS to modify, Trebuchet could become a popular choice even outside of the CyanogenMod ROMs, assuming people update to Ice Cream Sandwich.
Trebuchet offers plenty of features, even as an alpha release, so when it is fully completed, it should definitely be worth paying attention to. At present, Trebuchet runs only on devices with Android 4.0.3, and they also need to be rooted. At present, the feature list is as follows:
- Custom number of home screens
- Enable and disable persistent search bar
- Separate apps and widgets in app drawer
- Show and fade scrolling indicator in both home screen and drawer
- App sort in drawer (eg. size, install date, etc.)
- Widget resizing
- Auto-rotation of launcher and toggle
More features are also planned, such as transitions between the home screen and app drawer, though Trebuchet already sounds well equipped. It can be installed via a flashable .zip file on the XDA forums, or also as a regular .apk file, which would likely be more familiar. Check out the image gallery for pictures of the launcher, from the original poster on XDA.