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It turns out there is at least one more appealing aspect of the Samsung Epic 4G, and it has nothing to do with the hardware it is running on. With not too much work at all you can disable TouchWiz as your default launcher and restore the Epic to a stock Android 2.1 interface. You lose some things such as the seven TouchWiz homescreens, but if you just can’t be bothered with Samsung’s custom interface this will do the trick.
It should also work with the Fascinate when it hits Verizon, as well. Here is hoping this ability sticks when the Samsung Galaxy S devices get their update to Android 2.2, as vanilla 2.1 is looking just a bit…well, vanilla. I never thought I might say this, but you’re probably better off sticking with TouchWiz. See the video below for the instructions.
[via BriefMobile]
Aren’t the Galaxy S’s loaded with Touchwiz 3.0?
Does Touchwiz contain other difficult to remove customizations such as Dialer, Lock Screen, Calendar like Sense?
So happy somebody pointed this out. Because I knew you could but almost every reviewer said you couldn’t. But your right, hopefully they keep that vanilla when 2.2 arrives. Cause the hero had it & lost it during the 2.1 update. Idk if that was a sprint thing or HTC or due to hardware limitation having both. I have a feeling they will keep it.
To bad that won’t speed up the updates and Samsung already said that they are not going to use stock Android.
Oh yeah they said they aren’t worried about sending out updates as fast as Google can send them out.
I’m SOOOO glad I didn’t get the Vibrant. I knew Samsung would be the idiot’s choice of Android handset after Samsung screwed all the Behold II owners into being stuck with Android 1.6. I’ll stick to HTC.
You can do this with just about any custom UI. It’s not limited to TouchWiz.
Looks like the only reason why this works is because the vanilla android home app is on this phone, but not the vibrant. But whatev, its called vanilla for a reason and I like a little bit more flavor
WTF Samsung got Lazy?! I can ALMOST do this on my Vibrant
This is not disabling TouchWiz, it’s just changing the launcher. You still have Samsung widgets styles and replacements of all the other apps.
This is exactly how i disabled Sence UI on my EVO
Eugene373 found a way to fully get rid of TW. He’ll be removing it for his Vibrant9 Rom. =)
I just installed LauncherPro (and then restored the backup from my Moment’s LP) to get rid of the, in my opinion, gimmicky-iPhone-esque app tray. This way I can use the LP Plus widgets and not have to learn everything all over again, which is much better and one of the great things about the Android system. I actually really like the TouchWiz Taskbar with the power settings hidden in there, so I don’t want to get rid of TouchWiz completely.
I still prefer Touchwiz 3 with its 7 homescreens and more space for widgets on them.
Only reason for someone to do this is if they absolutely need the app menu to scroll down and not sideways.
@Usman Jealous much? Regardless of what happened on the BeholdII the Galaxy S is still the most powerful hardware and most flexible software on an Android phone today. Even if Samsung dropped all support for the GalaxyS tomorrow (which they won’t) there is already so much community support and the platform is completely open. It is easily the most hackable phone on the market right now. Put that together with the most powerful hardware on the market and it is a win-win…There are benchmarks out there showing the current GalaxyS cpu still running 50% faster than even the next gen Snapdraon 1.5GHz on OS 2.2. Some people are just bitter because they didn’t get one. Regardless of how you feel about Samsung the GalaxyS is a win, Go hate on some iPhone forums and just be happy for the Android community.
DAMN i want this PHONE!!!!! Anyone wants to buy a used evo? The screen is so freakin gorgeous. Speed, Screen, Storage, what more could you want?
He is disabling touchwiz…what he is not doing is “removing” it, not to be confused. He is changing the default launcher so tw3 won’t open then ask you to open vanilla (launcher pro,adw,etc) ontop of it because running 2 simultaneous launchers is not recommended nor useful. Although the launcher (TWlauncher) will still remain on your phone under the all filter in app management. To actually remove it (not recommended) you would have to uninstall the twlauncher and its subsequent files.
@ dwayne……a nexus
@dwayne … A working phone. Keep your Evo.
@Usman – the Telus HTC Hero is still at 1.5. There is debate as to whether Telus or HTC is at fault for this. In either case, my point is that sticking with HTC doesn’t guarantee not being left for dead.
I wouldn’t even say he disabled touchwiz… he disabled the touchwiz launcher and chose to use the stock launcher which apparently shipped with the phone. You could (as others have already mentioned) use any launcher app from the market as your default as well. But… I bet the status bar customizatons are still there.
I have to vent about the reporting on this site. It seems to me that you get all or at least 85% of your stories from Android Central. Seriously. A little originality please.
i have a liquid e which will be getting 2.2 in november mabe.I will be getting the samsung 19000 vibrant galaxy s. the hardware is top notch. the graphics are sick. The most important info that everyone who owns a galaxy s is that it has the minimum specs for ginger bread 3.0 full optimization. Could u imagine an increased retina display which is an improvement that comes with 3.0 along with web m!!!
Just bought the Epic yesterday. This morning I was using my phone and the screen went black on me. I tried to reset it. Didn’t work. I took the battery out, and turned it back on. The phone’s intro sequence began and then it turned black when the OS should load up. I couldn’t receive calls. So I took my phone in to the Sprint store and they replaced it no questions asked. So I’m playing on my new one tonight and lo and behold it DOES IT AGAIN!!!! It’s not the screen, but there’s some glitch with the OS. Anyone got any answers for me?
You know the funny thing about Android is how anyone can make the top USA phones in the world off Android but…yet many choose to put and try out half to not good at all skins over Android…making people look for away to remove them…crazy
Why does everyone want to remove (or disable) Touch Wiz? I’m using a really old phone until November and I’m trying to get all the info I can. So can someone tell me why Touch Wiz is bad and what options I have for replacing it if I choose to do so.
Cheese: not everyone wants to remove/disable touch wiz. I got my epic 4g yesterday and to be honest I don’t mind the UI samsung put on. Minus the fact you cannot modify the launcher, I actually like the added space of some extra home screens, I like the drop-down menu at the top (negating the vanilla android power bar), I like the samsung task manager (with realtime CPU usage), and I find hunting through 4 pages of alphabetized apps easier than a giant never ending list of them (even if it’s iphone like). Swype is the best way to enter text ever, if my Evo had it I may not have ever missed a slide out keyboard. I also use the non-landscape view to enter text with one hand with swype, again something my Evo and my old Instinct would have never been comfortable with (I know… you can install swype without Touch Wiz, but out of the box vanilla to out of the box touch wiz you have more features with touch wiz). It still looks and feels like a droid, it just has a few things added that many people find useful, and some do not.
The only problem that Touch Wiz has imo, is that it’s an excuse for Samsung to delay updates to future android versions. But I think that has more to do with Samsung, and less to do with the UI.
@jerrel – I have the same problem. Bought the epic Tuesday night and last night not 48 hours later the screen went black. I tried all the things you mentioned and the phone will turn on but then immediately the screen goes black. All the bottom buttons stay lit so I know the phone is turned on, but there’s nothing on the screen. I’m taking it back today to try again.
The screen goes black because it goes into sleep mode. If you people would just hit the power\wakeup button you would magically see the screen come back on. One tap brings it on.
@Loki – you might be on to something. Mine had an issue in which the screen was timing out after 6 seconds instead of the 30 it was set to. I was able to fix it by setting the timeout to something else and setting it back.
I am still battling another issue – the launcher no longer rotates to horizontal with the phone unless I slide out the keyboard. Any ideas?
looks too much like iOS
lol dwayne : “anyone want to buy the evo ~ nice screen fast” yadda yadda, you just described the epic, not the evo.
should probably try posting on a hero post instead of an epic post.
but honestly i really dont mind touchwiz, i actually kind of like it.
for the person who said : “you only do this if you absolutely need a scrolling app drawer” you can turn it into an alphabetical scrolling log which is what i got going on
T-mobile Vibrant or Sprint Epic 4g???
tried to install android 2.2 on the vibrant and it is now stuck in recovery mode… is there anyway to to get android 2.1 and touchwiz back? Any help would be appreciated.
I’ve turned TouchWiz 3.0 off on my Epic 4G, but I decided I prefer the stock UI, at least until there’s a stable Cyanogen Mod for my phone. Is there any way to re-enable TouchWiz? I tried to reverse my actions to disable it, but it didn’t work. Any help would be much appreciated. :]
Yoreed, the only way u can get it back is to reset it.
go to settings > privacy and erase all settings!
There isn’t any other way to do it other than decimating all my apps and everything else..?
Seeing as how I’m stuck on 2.1 for the moment, I can’t easily move all my apps over to my SD card, so if there’s any other way to undo the change, to get it back to TouchWiz, I’d really love to know :]
How to able touchwiz?