Android home screen
A home screen you turn
Your apps ride an orbit along the bottom of the screen, under your thumb, where a row of icons at the top of a grid has never been. Everything else — the widgets, the pages, the assistant, the way the whole thing looks — is yours to put where you want it.
Scroll on the orbit to spin it — up goes back. Drag it, or use the arrow keys.
What it is
Orbital replaces your home screen. The apps you reach for constantly ride an ellipse along the bottom of the screen: turn it with a thumb, tap what comes round. Behind it are your pages — a lattice you can extend left, right, up and down — with widgets dropped exactly where you put them.
It asks for nothing at install time. Every permission is requested by the feature that needs it, and whatever you decline simply goes quiet.
The short list
A dock you turn
One orbit or three, anchored to the bottom or either side, or a plain flat row if the wheel is not for you. It can turn slowly by itself, wind back to where it started, and stay within reach inside other apps.
Nineteen widgets
Clock, calendar, week, up next, weather, now playing, news, feeds, people, notes, pinned notes, battery, torch, calculator, folders, app shortcuts, an app scroller, and any Android widget you already have.
An assistant bar
Type an errand and it does it: reminders, notes, messages, emails, calls, calendar entries, apps and searches. A key for Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini is optional and only used for lines it cannot read itself.
Themes that do something
Eight looks, each demonstrating a feature you might never have found: Terminal brings named tabs and a drawer that lists, Orbital sets the dock drifting, Sleek takes the words off.
Built for foldables
The open screen can share the folded one's layout, spread two pages side by side, or keep a layout of its own — with its own theme, dock and settings.
Nothing phones home
No account, no sign-in, no Orbital server, no analytics library, no crash reporter, no ad network. The five kinds of request that can leave your phone are each listed, with what is in them.
Getting it
Orbital is in closed testing on Google Play while the last of the release work is finished. Leave an address and you will get an email with the download.
Your address is used for one thing: sending you the test build and telling you when it is out. It is not passed on, and one line back asking to be taken off is enough.
Android 8.0 and later. Works on phones, foldables and tablets.
Read on
- The guide — every setting and what it does, page by page.
- The privacy policy — what Orbital reads, what stays on the phone, and everything that leaves it.