When OS X Lion was rolled out, we were given several new technologies to add to our toolbox of Mac goodness. One of these, Launchpad, falls into a unique category in that people either love it, or they hate it.
Perhaps “hate” is a bit extreme, but most “tech-savvy” types lambaste Launchpad as an overly simplistic tool of little or no value. The reality is that Apple simply isn’t catering to them—they can take care of themselves quite well, thank you very much.
Launchpad is really targeted toward the majority of Apple’s current and future customer base—the typical Mac user who just wants to jump in and get the job done with no fuss. More importantly, they are likely to be already familiar with the iOS interface, and Launchpad mimics the iOS device’s Home Page.
This means that Launchpad gives the Mac a familiarity that unifies the user experience across all devices: pages of application icons, swiping from page to page via a trackpad, creating folders, and deleting folders and app icons. Launchpad even comes complete with “jiggling” icons. The end result is that Launchpad can indeed be quite useful to many happy Mac users.
Let me show you some tips for making the most of it in both Lion and Mountain Lion.
Customizing the Launchpad screen
Launchpad is generically known as an application launcher. By default, you can gain access to Launchpad via its icon located in the Dock. That’s right – Launchpad is an application itself located in the Applications folder.
Opening Launchpad reveals a screen full of application icons, similar to what is displayed on an iOS device’s Home Page. To launch an app, simply point to its icon, and do a single tap on the trackpad or single click of the mouse.
A Launchpad page can contain up to 35 icons. Only applications or application aliases located within the system’s Applications folder (and the Applications folder in your Home directory) are loaded into Launchpad. If you create a folder inside the Applications folder, then place apps inside the new sub-folder, those apps will appear in Launchpad. If you have an application located elsewhere on your Mac, you can place an alias of it in the Applications folder, and the application will appear in Launchpad.
As Launchpad’s pages are filled with icons, the page count will increase. To switch back and forth between pages, use the two-finger horizontal swipe gesture on the trackpad or drag the mouse. You can also use the Command-left arrow and Command-right arrow shortcut keys on your keyboard. The presence of multiple pages are signaled at the bottom of the screen by one or more thick dots that act as visual indicators of which Launchpad page you are viewing.
Folders