How to keep Blinkfeed while using a launcher.

How to keep Blinkfeed while using a launcher.

HTC has created a nice news and social media aggregation feature in Sense 5 on the HTC One.  However, many users don't like the restrictive features of the Sense 5 launcher.

Using a third party launcher such as ADW, Nova, or Apex provides much more customization than Sense 5, but since Blinkfeed is part of the Sense 5 launcher, you will immediately lose Blinkfeed.

To get access to Blinkfeed with one of these launchers, follow these steps:

1.  Clear the defaults of the current default homescreen launcher.  This is done under SETTINGS/APPS.  Click on the default launcher.  Scroll down and find the clear defaults button.  Click it.

2.  Press the home key.  You should now have a choice of which launcher to use.  Select HTC Sense.
Click "One Time Only".

3. Delete all home screens except blink feed.  Clear the apps out of the dock.  (Optionally you can keep the homescreens and icons in the dock if you wish, deleting them makes a clean Blinkfeed only setup that I prefer).

4. Press Home.  This time choose you preferred launcher and tap Always.  This should take you to your home screen under the new launcher.

5. Create a custom shortcut.  In most launchers you long press the homescreen and choose add or add shortcut.  When asked to what you want to create a shortcut you will be choosing an Activity, not an App.  In the list of activities, scroll down to HTC Sense. Click it.  Choose HTC sense (Launcher) or HTC Sense com.htc.Launcher.Launcher depending on which launcher you are using.


6. You now have a shortcut icon that will take you to Blinkfeed.  Clicking the icon will open Blinkfeed.  Clicking home again returns you to your preferred launcher homescreen.

That's it!

Variations on above include setting the HTC Sense launcher as the default so that hitting home opens blinkfeed, while another icon is created to your preferred launcher.