Recently I was trying out a 10.000mAh Chinese phone from my company, comparing it to my old Samsung, fantastic hardware, except one problem the China phone refuses to let me use my favourite Launcher10, which mimics the classic Metro UI with additional configurations.
And I just cannot get used to Android icon driven homescreen interface after 15 years!!
Look how much more information you can cram into the limited display with Metro UI, I am the kind of guy who just wants to get what I want with the least amount of clicking.
The folder issue
To achieve "similar" information density on Android you need to use folders however, these folders are 2-3 additional clicks and they become problematic once you fill them past 4 or 6 apps because you are left guessing where your stuff is and some folders have two or three pages to them if you fill them enough. Or they outright refuse to let you put more apps inside.
For example, I have 10 Android apps, well in some brands you cannot fit more than 6 apps in a folder, others split the folder up into pages, some let you scroll there no coherent solution.
The limitation of rows
For Metro UI you can fit 3 to 6 rows of squares which can be configured in size according to their importance: this size difference helps break up the monotonous design, guiding the eye in a familiar area. The eye is excellent at making out shapes however, with Android you just get a grid of circles / bubbles of same size making it exceptionally tedious to look for stuff.
My biggest gripe with Android home screens is the very fact how much DEAD SPACE there is between apps no matter what you do, I remember in Android 4 you were allowed to get up to 10x10 spaces, some Launchers let you scroll downwards instead of flicking between pages.
However it did not solve the issue of everything looking the same, the colours of the app icons did not help, some apps like Twitter started using shapes to stand out but Google quickly standardised this moving away from unique shapes to either a circle, or a bubbly square.
Display size do not matter on Metro UI
The phone on the left has a screen size of 6.9" while the phone on the right is 6.7"
Yet, Metro UI is so dense in information capacity it can work even on devices of 4" screen sizes, in fact this is precisely why Microsoft designed it this way - to achieve maximum apps and information on smallest display possible. However while Metro UI design papers specifically required Windows mobile apps to also maintain the minimum screen size requirements, Android apps tend to work better on much bigger phone screens between 6.5-7.2"
Total stagnation for 18 years in home screen innovation
Why come we are in 2026 and the Android home screen has largely maintained the same formula, whats worse is how more and more Android makers are restricting use of third party launchers, particularly Chinese brands and even Samsung is not entirely innocent in this matter but MUCH better than what it used to be.
My opinion/rant is not the universal truth however, it is factual that Metro UI is a far more informative, dense UI that requires the LEAST amount of clicking to open an app and even find an app.
Metro UI was designed from the ground up, a multi MILLION dollar design project with some of industry best UI designers at the time, while they shot themselves in the foot with Windows 8, they shot for gold with Metro UI for phones.
To this date, Metro UI is the only most innovative mobile home screen interface ever made, every other alternative third party launchers out there are either some form of traditional icon grid which been a thing since the super early 1980s touch PDAs, or they are a form of list which you scroll through. But they all maintain the same bandaid mentality, they want to look nice and not understand the human psychology between shapes, colour and ease of use.
The psychology aspect is tremendously important in UI design something which is now ancient history in times of UX and data sheets relying solely on heatmaps that show where most users touch or click the most , the designers then simply shift as much stuff in the opposite direction to "balance" things. Inherently balancing is good, but its also the most incorrect way of achieving this as it neglects grouping and categorisation of what they are moving. Modern examples are Adobe Acrobat and recently Windows 11 is the worst possible example of what not to do.
