How to install the Google Experience Launcher

Google included something a little special in the Nexus 5. Luckily this little surprise is easy to enable on any other device thanks to the latest update to Google Search on Android. If you’ve got a smartphone or tablet running Android 4.1 or higher, here’s now you can get the Google Experience Launcher.

For the last couple of years, Android fans have wanted a way to install the pure Android experience over whatever it is the manufacturer has cooked up this week. If you can’t have the latest version of pure Android, you might as well have the next best thing right? Google responded finally, with the most interesting change to the way they do things yet. The Google Experience Launcher, seen first on the new Nexus 5, puts Google first and foremost. It puts Google Now front and center, puts voice activated search front and center, and provides a nice smooth experience for anyone to enjoy as long as you know how to turn it on.

Essentially, all of the things that make the Google Experience Launcher special live inside the Google Search app. This app is on every Android phone with the Google Play Store, and if you have an Android phone running Android 4.1 or higher, it’s really easy to get this experience on your phone. All you need to do is install the container as a separate APK. Thanks to the guys at Android Police you can download this file here to your Android phone, install it, and you’ll be good to go.

When the application install is complete, tap the Home button. From here, you’ll see a new pop up that will ask you which launcher you want to use. Google Search is the new Google Experience Launcher, and if you tap on that and select “Always” you’ll have that as your launcher every time you press the Home button on your phone. To remove this as your default, you can either uninstall the launcher or select “Clear Defaults” from the detailed apps view for the launcher. This will allow you to choose which launcher is your default again once you’ve pressed the Home key.

So far this has been tested on a Nexus 7 running 4.4, an HTC One running CyanogenMod, and a Samsung Galaxy S4 running Android 4.3. The results were the same every time, so there shouldn’t be any issues with your device as long as it is Android 4.1 or higher.