Nova Launcher running slow?

[greycobalt]

I installed Nova Launcher yesterday after the recommendation it received from a ton of people. I love how it looks and what you can do with it, but I noticed after a while that if my phone had been locked for a while, when I unlocked it, Nova Launcher would quickly blink twice (the whole screen, like it was flashing in) and my main weather widget would have to load in again, and every icon on the home screen would load in. It would all-together take about 5 seconds, which isn't a HUGE deal, but the default launcher never did this. Is there something I'm doing wrong, or does it just have to pull that much from its memory, slowing it down?

I also threw Widgetlocker on there (mainly to get more icons on the radial from the lock screen), and sometimes it too will be late to the party, showing me my original lock screen before quickly flashing over with the Widgetlocker one I had made. Is this just something inherent to these apps? They're made by the same people, aren't they?

 

[cupfulloflol]

I installed Nova Launcher yesterday after the recommendation it received from a ton of people. I love how it looks and what you can do with it, but I noticed after a while that if my phone had been locked for a while, when I unlocked it, Nova Launcher would quickly blink twice (the whole screen, like it was flashing in) and my main weather widget would have to load in again, and every icon on the home screen would load in. It would all-together take about 5 seconds, which isn't a HUGE deal, but the default launcher never did this. Is there something I'm doing wrong, or does it just have to pull that much from its memory, slowing it down?

I also threw Widgetlocker on there (mainly to get more icons on the radial from the lock screen), and sometimes it too will be late to the party, showing me my original lock screen before quickly flashing over with the Widgetlocker one I had made. Is this just something inherent to these apps? They're made by the same people, aren't they?

What you are experiencing is what is commonly called homescreen redraw. In Android, when an app needs memory, other apps that are currently in memory that aren't needed are killed off. Launchers (Nova and WidgetLocker is a launcher of sorts too) should be one of the last things killed, but they do get killed from time to time. Really though, with 1GB of RAM that is in the Galaxy Nexus you shouldn't run into this problem that often. Especially if it is idle.

Do you perhaps have a task killer?

Did you change the settings in dev options, settings > developer options (near the bottom), specifically some of the ones at the bottom. Background Process Limit perhaps?

Perhaps try another launcher, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.anddoes.launcher <-- Apex and https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobint.hololauncher <-- Holo Launcher are two other popular ICS launchers. Perhaps one of those will give you better luck.

Are you rooted?

 

[greycobalt]

Thanks for your response!

I don't have a task killer fortunately, I learned the error of my ways early on in the smartphone world. I haven't changed any dev settings either. I could definitely try another launcher, but to be completely honest I was only trying Nova because I'm fond of that company, and I wanted to be able to group and hide certain icons in the drawer. I'm not too unhappy with the stock Nexus feel yet.

I am not rooted actually. I tried to initially, but once I realized I had already set up my phone and rooting would wipe it, I gave up. Again, nothing in the stock settings has caused me to care enough to try rooting. I do want Jellybean though.

I do think I have a faulty handset unfortunately. If I turned on the 4G radio, it loses signal every 5 - 10 minutes on the dot. I took it into the Verizon store earlier today and she tried swapping out SIM cards, dusting out the SIM port (lol), and tried to get me to let her factory reset it, but that wasn't going to happen. If it ends up the phone is faulty, and I can somehow get them to send me a new one and not one of the certified replacement pieces of crap, I may start by rooting it (if you recommend it that is). I have been fairly happy with the phone in general though, especially the freedom from bloatware. I think my only legit complaint at this point would be the abysmal battery life.