Remove Search Bar In ICS On Galaxy Nexus & Enable 4×5 Portrait Grid
Quite a lot of Galaxy Nexus owners have complained about the inability of the Ice Cream Sandwich to allow removal of the Google Search bar on the device. For some, search bars are not really appealing at all, so when the find themselves restricted from doing so, they turn to Android developers. XDA-Developer forum member djmcnz has released a mod that now let’s you remove that search bar giving you a 4×5 grid, rather than the 4×4 originally. How does this work and what else does it offer? Read on after the break.
Features:
- Google search bar removed from home screen.
- Search still works as expected.
- Choose 3 or 5 home screens.
- Great with Paul’s search button mod available here.
- 4×5 grid enabled in portrait mode to reclaim the search bar space.
- Vertical grid height reduced slightly to accommodate 5 rows.
- Landscape remains 4×4 (4×5 doesn’t fit without scaling) so bottom row is chopped off (gracefully).
Pictures below courtesy of the developer.
Before you install this mod, be sure to have another launcher app installed, incase this mod crashes the stock ICS launcher.
Disclaimer: Follow this guide at your own risk. AddictiveTips will not be liable if your device gets damaged or bricked during the process.
Requirements:
- A rooted Galaxy Nexus. See our guide on rooting the Galaxy Nexus.
- ClockworkMod recovery installed. See our guide on installing ClockworkMod recovery 5 on the Galaxy Nexus.
- (https://djmcnz.batteryboss.org/GNexus/mods/StockLauncher/v3/ICSLauncherNoSearch4x5v3.zip) Standard 5 Screens with Landscape.
- (https://djmcnz.batteryboss.org/GNexus/mods/StockLauncher/v3/ICSLauncherNoSearch4x5v3+NoLandscape.zip) Standard 5 Screens without Landscape.
- (https://djmcnz.batteryboss.org/GNexus/mods/StockLauncher/v3/ICSLauncherNoSearch4x5v3+3×3.zip) 3 Screens in Landscape and Portrait.
- (https://djmcnz.batteryboss.org/GNexus/mods/StockLauncher/v3/ICSLauncherNoSearch4x5v3+4×0+D2.zip) 4 Screens without Landscape.
Instructions:
- To begin, download the mod of your choice from the links above, and copy it to the root of your SD card.
- Reboot the device into recovery and make a Nandroid backup.
- Select wipe cache and wipe dalvick cache.
- Navigate to install zip from sdcard > choose zip from sdcard and select the zip file.
- Once the file is flashed, simply reboot your device.
For updates and queries, head over to the forum thread at XDA-Developers.
