Launchpad...does it actually have a purpose?

[Drunken Master]

So much for being called LaunchPad

The name is genius, because it launches you from your (i)Pad to the Mac!

Back to the Mac, I hit the sack, I've been too long and I'm glad I'm back, yes I'm let loose, from the noose that's kept me hangin' about...

 

[zen]

I don't mind Launchpad, if only because I'm finding it easier to find apps in it than in my dock stack of the Applications folder, which I've now removed. I am however curious as to how Launchpad can be customised - I don't understand the order of the apps, and it is showing a bunch of junk from inside other folders (like every single World of Warcraft updater file as a separate app).

Mission Control is by far more... strange for me. That really appears to have no purpose, and is much less functional than Expose was.

 

[Kevenly]

Beware, I removed some things from LaunchPad thinking I was organizing it with only the apps I wanted in there and it deleted them off my computer entirely. They didn't go in the trash, just completely vanished. They don't even exist in my Time Machine backup anymore. It's behaving like a Finder not an application launcher.

 

[Benbikeman]

Beware, I removed some things from LaunchPad thinking I was organizing it with only the apps I wanted in there and it deleted them off my computer entirely.

LP works exactly like the Applications stack in that respect.

What I have is all the apps I actually use on the first page. On the second page, I have four folders of apps:

Occasional contains apps I rarely use, so don't want the clutter of them on the main page but do want to be able to launch them when needed.

Autolaunched contains apps I use but which I never need to open manually. For example, VLC is my default video player. I never need to double-click the VLC app, I just double-click the video I want to play. My 'insert DVD' action is set to launch RipIt, etc.

Unused contains apps I don't expect to use but you never know, so I'm hanging onto them just in case. iDVD, for example.

Junk contains apps I don't think I need but don't want to delete in case it screws up functionality of an app I do use. For example, Lightroom installed something called Adobe Application Manager. No idea what it does, haven't been bothered to google so tucked it away in there.

 

[varunsanthanam]

At first use Launchpad seems clunky and slightly time consuming to me. Also, when I open a folder in it the split-screen animation that follows is very jerky (I am on a 2008 MBP but still..)

On a related note - the mixture of the space-faring theme (mission control, launchpad, spacey backgrounds as standard) with the big cat name, smacks of lack of direction in the design dept.

It's not just you. I'm on 2010 MBP and that animation seems very clunky.

 

[MasterHowl]

I quite like it looks nice too