I don't want a big search bar on my home screen, and there's no way around it with the Pixel Launcher except use a different launcher.

Honestly... I just wants a launcher with tabs to sort apps in categories (no not app groups).

Nova Prime almost gone, before that Apex Launcher...

And every other launcher seems to just love to just present a search bar to find your apps and use some magic sorting algorithm to sort your apps...

I want predictable, user ordered apps in tabs so I can open one by heart with my eyes closed.

I'm with you... and have yet to find the solution. Somehow only Nova does tabbed app drawer pages (and allows folders within them).

I'm still using Apex. Shouldn't I be?

Same. I organize my phone into screens by topic (apps and some widgets), that allows me to keep a mental model without remembering app names etc. Will probably be hard to find a 1:1 replacement for Nova Launcher, if it enshittifies :/

Why? To avoid using Google search. It's been an inferior search product for years. Last time I used the default launcher on a pixel, I couldn't change it to a better search product, so I changed launcher.

I appreciate that I can choose to decorate my house as I see fit. At least on my Pixel 10 there's way too much google this and google that. I guess if you're deep into the ecosystem it's a value add but for me a custom launcher lets me remove all that code.

My phones almost a decade old (OnePlus 5T, so I guess 8 years now), back from the time that launchers were a bit more necessary. If I had a modern android phone I probably wouldnt use a launcher, but then again I probably wouldnt use a modern android phone either

People want different interfaces for the home screen of their device, obviously.

I want a black background, with a simple A-Z list of the apps I have on my phone, with some hidden. No icons, no transparency effects and animations.