Pros:
Appeal: Launch8 brings a fresh take on the modern Start screen by giving you access through a familiar user path to your apps, now more commonly found on mobile devices.
Tweakable: In addition to its clean look, the app dock's effects can be customized by color and transparency. Icon sizes also scale accordingly to size, should you opt for a larger dock. You can also add both desktop and modern apps.
Accessibility: Recent apps and files pop up in a drawer-like fashion, similar to the drawer found on OS X's application dock.
Cons:
Constrained: The placement is limited to the top- and bottom-centers of the screen. It would have been nice to have more moveable flexibility in placement, like left- and right-screen alignments. This could have been due to possible interference from the Charms bar.
Final Verdict:
Stardock once again aims to fill the needs of a niche gap, creating a solution set for those who want the best-of-both-worlds functionality on their Windows machines. There's really not much in terms of heavy features, but then again, it's a fancy app launcher. Considering the upcoming release of 8.1, I'm not convinced that the modern screen is really as much of a pain to use as Stardock may want you to believe (at least in the area of easy access to apps). But if this pet peeve can be even slightly improved by this dock, perhaps the most effective solutions are simply the easiest ones.
The Start screen in Windows 8 organizes applications into groups of tiles. Launch8 adds the convenience of a quick access stationary dock on your Start screen. Drag and drop your favorite applications into Launch8 and quickly launch them no matter where they are.
Features:
- wipe left or right and Launch8 stays in place
- Quickly launch applications from the dock
- Position Launch8 at the top or bottom of your Start screen
- Access docked application jumplists