While you could ask for invitations to try the beta for several months now, it was just this week that Yahoo officially launched Aviate, the customized launcher that the company bought in 2014, after only three months on the market. This app launcher completely changes the interface and the control system on your smartphone to offer an experience adapted to your habits, with shortcuts to the tasks you do most frequently.

In recent days we seem to be seeing an increase in custom launchers, with this week’s launch of Nokia’s Z Launcher and, slightly earlier, a new version of GO Launcher 5 or Solo Launcher. It seems that the money lies in a near future where there are ever more smartphones without a customized layer installed by the manufacturer, leaving intact the so-called Google Experience.

aviate 1 Yahoo officially launches Aviate, its Android launcher

With regards to the Yahoo! software, it offers certain elements already seen in the aforementioned Nokia software, such as automatization to display shortcuts to the apps you use most, although in this case it goes a step futher in automatically detecting what you’re trying to do according to your use habits or a particular thing you’re doing.

You can thus generate different profiles for Work, Off-Work, or Vacation—meaning if you connect headphones, the menu displays related options, or if you use a geolocation service, related apps will pop up for you to use. Context-adaptable transformation is, of course, a very good idea.

aviate 2 Yahoo officially launches Aviate, its Android launcher

Things don’t stop there: in addition, all the apps you have will clump into different categories, besides being integrated into a system that locates your favorite contacts and allows you to use your desktop to add widgets of all sorts.

But a leopard can’t change its spots, and Yahoo’s interest in pumping up this app is obviously aimed at propping up its own line of apps, meaning by default it includes Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Calendar, Yahoo Weather and other services from the company.

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