How-to guide · App launch & system navigation Open any installed app by name

Actionopen_app
Audience Motor Cognitive Vision
Time Under 10 seconds
Permissions None — Aside uses the standard launcher intent
What this is: A spoken or typed request that launches any installed app on your phone by name — without finding its icon on a home screen, without scrolling through the app drawer, and without spelling anything into a search box. You name the app the way you talk about it (“the calculator,” “my banking app,” “Spotify”) and Aside maps that phrase to the package on your phone and launches it.
Try it now

Open Aside on your phone, then say or type:

“Open the calculator.”

Aside confirms in the chat history and the calculator appears on screen, ready for you to use. Substitute any app you have installed — “open Spotify,” “open my banking app,” “open the camera” — the same flow handles all of them.

Step by step

  1. Open Aside

    Tap the Aside icon, or trigger your assist gesture if you’ve set Aside as your default assistant. Aside opens to the orb in its idle state — calm, slowly breathing — with the prompt “Tell me everything,” beneath it.

    The Aside main screen at idle on a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. Across the top: the word ‘Aside’ with a red dot, a small mono status pill reading ‘● IDLE’, the cost counter ‘$2.949 today’, and a ‘NEW’ link top-right. Centered in the screen is a large warm-paper-colored orb with a soft brown core, slowly breathing. Below the orb, in large bold type: ‘Tell me everything,’. Below that, in lighter type: ‘Tap the orb or type below.’. Near the bottom is a clay-colored pill button reading ‘Make Aside my assistant’. Below that is a row of four mono pills: ‘history’, ‘type’, ‘muted’, ‘memory · 1 new’.
    Aside open at idle. The orb breathes; nothing else is happening.

  2. Say (or type) the name of the app

    Hold the orb to talk and say “Open the calculator,” or tap the type pill at the bottom and type the same phrase, then send. You can phrase it any way that feels natural — “launch the calculator,” “start Spotify,” “open my banking app” all work. Aside resolves the phrase to a package and dispatches the standard Android launcher intent.

    Open the Samsung Calculator.
    The Aside main screen with the chat history bottom sheet covering the lower half of the screen. The status pill at the top reads ‘● READY’ and the cost counter has ticked up to ‘$3.012 today’. Behind a slight scrim the orb is dimmed; the words ‘Tell me everything,’ are still partially visible above the sheet. Inside the bottom sheet are three stacked entries: a small mono label ‘YOU’ above the line ‘Open the Samsung Calculator.’; a label ‘ASIDE’ above the reply ‘Opening the Samsung Calculator.’; and a clay-tinted ‘ASIDE NOTE’ chip showing ‘▶ com.sec.android.app.calculator is not installed’ — Aside’s first package guess missed; the calculator opens through the fallback launcher resolution that the next screen captures.
    Aside confirms the request, dispatches the launcher, and notes the package it tried.

  3. The calculator opens

    A moment later the screen switches to the calculator app, ready to use. You didn’t hunt for the icon, you didn’t scroll the app drawer, you didn’t spell anything. The phrase you used was matched to the installed package and Aside fired the launcher intent.

    The Samsung calculator app open full-screen on the Galaxy S23 Ultra in dark mode. The upper half is mostly empty; a single ‘0’ sits at the top-right of the result row. Below the result row is a row of four small icons — clock (history), unit converter, formula editor, and a green backspace key — followed by a thin separator and the keypad. The keypad is a 4×5 grid of round dark buttons: ‘C’, ‘()’, ‘%’, ‘÷’ across the top; ‘7 8 9 ×’; ‘4 5 6 −’; ‘1 2 3 +’; and ‘+/− 0 . =’ along the bottom, with the ‘=’ key filled green and the operator keys filled gray. The calculator is in its starting state with no calculation entered yet. The system 3-button nav bar is visible at the very bottom.
    The calculator is up and ready to use. No tapping through screens, no icon hunt.

  4. Done — or come back to Aside

    Use the app like you normally would. When you’re ready to ask Aside for something else, swipe back to the launcher and tap the Aside icon (or use your assist gesture if Aside is your default assistant). Aside picks up exactly where you left off, with the chat history of this turn still in place.

If Aside replies “I couldn’t find an app called …”: The app probably isn’t installed under the name you used, or the package matcher didn’t recognize the phrase. Try a different phrasing — the actual app name from your home screen often works (e.g. “open Samsung Calculator” instead of “open the maths app”).
Note: Aside only opens apps you already have installed. It will not download an app from the Play Store on your behalf, and it will not open hidden or work-profile apps that the launcher itself can’t list.