- The S9 and the S9 Plus were recently released
and they are both fine bits a kit,
but what if you love the hardware
but you're not that big of a fan of the software?
Now, Samsung's Experience UI formerly called TouchWiz UI
has gotten way better on the S8 and now on the S9.
I don't really mind it as much,
but I do understand if there's those of you out there
that would like to just have
a more Stock experience, no judgment.
So for today's tip and trick Tuesday,
I figured I'd show you how to make your
Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus look like Stock Android.
Now firstly, we need to change the launcher.
If you're not familiar, the launcher is basically
the app that you use as your home screen.
By changing it to another one and there are a lot
in the Play store by the way,
you'll make the biggest impact on your day to day use
as anytime you hit home it opens this app
and it's where you're gonna spend a lot of your time
on your Galaxy S9.
So to get the most Stock looking look,
we're going to go for the pixel launcher.
Now you can try and get it from the Play store,
but it will incorrectly tell you most of the time
that it doesn't work for your device.
So instead we need to download the APK
which is the installer file, manually from another site
and install it on our own.
To do this we can grab the latest APK file
from this link here beneath my video,
by viewing this page on our phone and then we're gonna
tap the link below to start to download
and save it to our device.
Now once that downloads you can pull down the notifications
or go into the my files app on your phone,
whichever one works.
And tap the APK from there, and then tap install.
Now after it installs, hit the home button
and select the pixel launcher.
This will also make it the new default launcher
if you check the button,
so anytime you hit the home button
this is where you'll end up.
Next, one of the first things I change on
pretty much any Android device I use right away
is the messaging app.
Now I prefer the one from Google, simply because my OCD
really likes that I can swipe away messages
whenever I'm done looking at them to get
a clean no messages look.
And then whenever they respond or they message me again
it just pops it all back up and it's just, I just like it,
it's like checking things off, it feels good.
Regardless of your reasoning, we're gonna head to
the Play store and search for Android messages.
Then we're going to install it.
You'll know it's the right one by the way
because Google Inc will be the developer.
Then we can open the app and follow the prompts
for it to make itself our new default messaging app.
And now to compliment our new messaging app,
why not the Stock Google keyboard?
To get that go to the Play store and search for Gboard.
Install it, open the app and just like with the
Android messages we're just gonna follow the prompts
to set it as our default app.
So Chrome which is the default Android browser
is usually installed on your Galaxy devices by default.
But it's not set as the default browser.
I said default a lot, you get the idea.
So in this we're going to make it our default browser
or download it if you don't already have it,
'cause depending on your market you might not.
Now it should already have it like I said,
but if it doesn't head to the Play store
and search for and install Chrome.
Once it's on your phone, head to settings, then apps
and tap the three dots at the top right corner
and select default apps.
Then tap on browser app and select Chrome.
Now whenever you open any link or anything
that requires the internet browser,
it should automatically open Chrome.
Okay so for the dialer and contacts,
there is no Stock one in the Play store and I couldn't
really find on the web, if you do leave a link below.
But there is a really good clone called the ExDialer.
Go to the Play store again and we're gonna search for
and install ExDialer, that's E X Dialer.
Once installed, head to settings, apps
and tap on the three dots in the top right corner,
and select default apps again.
Then we can tap on calling app and select ExDialer.
Okay next let's replace the calendar
with Google's own version of the calendar.
Now again this should already be on your S9 or S9 Plus
but if for some reason it isn't,
you can head to the Play store and install Google Calendar.
Tap on it and open it and then you can set it up.
Once it's set up we're gonna head to settings, apps,
tap on the Samsung calendar which is called Calendar
but it'll have a green icon compared to
the blue one of the Google calendar.
And then we're gonna tap clear defaults.
Now this will remove the Samsung calendar
as the app to handle events.
And the next time something requires an event,
it'll ask you which calendar to use.
So just make sure to select the Google Calendar
and then that will now be your new default.
Now one of my favorite albeit more subtle updates
to the pixel phones was the living wallpaper.
So these are the ones that have like these exotic locations
and they are live wallpapers, they kind of move
and do subtle things like the waves crashing, et cetera.
Now I want that as far as I'm concerned with Stock Android.
You could just go download the Google wallpapers app
and download any of the normal Stock Android
static wallpapers, but if you want like a nicer touch
and actually mimic kind of like the pixel,
which I guess is now what we're calling Stock Android,
here's how to do that.
So we're gonna head to the Play store
and download the Google wallpapers app,
the thing that I mentioned before.
Now these living wallpaper apps won't be available
in it by default, but we need it to install them anyway.
So next we're gonna head to this link here
below the video on my site to end up at XDA,
do this in your phone's browser by the way
so that we can download the APK file that's listed
in the first post and save it directly to the phone
to skip a step.
Now once downloaded you can tap it and tap install.
After that you can head to the Google wallpapers app
and you'll see a section for live wallpapers,
tap that and you'll see the new pixel ones in there.
Tap one and tap set to set it as your home screen,
lock screen or both.
Now you should be looking pretty darn Stock at this point.
If there are other apps or other things that can replace
other parts of the Samsung UI,
again if you wanna look Stock,
let me know in the comments below, I'm sure other people
would appreciate it, just post a link or whatever,
or just tell people the name so they can go
find it in the Play store if that's where it is.
I'm sure everybody again, would appreciate it.
If you liked this video though please thumbs up it
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Otherwise though, regardless as always, thanks for watching.
(upbeat music)