You don't have to click: Launchpad is available via an unmodified F4, so it's a single button press to bring up instantly, no matter what you're doing.

You don't have to "page through a giant iPhone screen", you can type and select. I used to use it all the time, without ever reaching for the mouse to do so.

Launchpad also let you change the order of app icons and group them into pages and folders; I don't think the new system lets you do any of these things.

Launchpad was focussed on a single task: launching an app. If I need to launch an app, I know I need to 99.9% of the time (I'm hedging; it's probably 100%), so there's no benefit showing me documents, web pages, and god-knows-what-else at the same time.

I nearly forgot: while I was testing Tahoe, I had a situation in which some apps just did not show up when I typed. They were in the list, they just got filtered out incorrectly. I've no idea if this was a bug or not; I'll see when I upgrade to the final release.

▲

browningstreet 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

F4 on my Macbook Pro brings up Spotlight, not Launchpad.

But, bringing up Spotlight, clicking backspace, then clicking on the Applications icon brings you basically Launchpad.

They've mushed them together, but there seem to be three states: Spotlight with typing pre-filled, Spotlight bare with some additional icon options, and then Launchpad, which is more Spotlight than I remember it being.

▲

zarzavat 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> so there's no benefit showing me documents, web pages, and god-knows-what-else at the same time.

I always just disabled these from Spotlight. If I want to search for files I use the search bar in Finder.

▲

basisword 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Interesting. I've never had any issues using Spotlight to search/open apps. For your use case unmodified F4 will bring up Spotlight now where you can type. If you want more precision unmodified F4 followed by CMD+1 will allow you to search only apps.

	▲	oneeyedpigeon 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> For your use case unmodified F4 will bring up Spotlight now where you can type. Yes, this is what I've been doing during the beta, and it's far less useful than Launchpad IME so far. > If you want more precision unmodified F4 followed by CMD+1 will allow you to search only apps. It looks like I had previously done so, and now the setting is 'stuck'. I.e. it's the default view — I can still go 'up' to search across stuff, but F4 takes me to an app launcher by default, so that's one drawback eliminated (thanks). As an aside, I've learnt just now while testing this that F4 has an awkward asymmetrical input buffer. You can open+close instantly with two quick presses, but the same does not work to close+open. I'm not really complaining so much about this, just mentioning it!