Kevin Barry leaves Nova Launcher
Nova Launcher is probably the most popular launcher for Android. Large groups of users swear by this launcher that you can layer over the current Android interface. Nova Launcher lets you personalise many things, such as customising icons, widgets and themes. Furthermore, you can work with custom gestures and set shortcuts. To go even deeper into personalisation, you can work with icon packs, colours, smart folders and many other customisations.
But it remains to be seen how long you will be able to enjoy Nova Launcher. In 2022, Kevin Barry's launcher was acquired by an analytics firm called Branch. At the time, they promised not to interfere with the launcher's development. In a round of questions on Reddit, Branch's then CEO Alex Austin promised that when Kevin left Branch, Nova Launcher's code would become Open Source. It would then be released to the community.
Cracks in collaboration
Promising promises, then, but it all turned out a bit differently. In 2024, only Kevin Barry remained as the sole member of the team, which consisted of 12 people. Now Kevin Barry has indicated that he will no longer be involved in the development of Nova Launcher. Indeed; the developer has spent the past few months preparing for the open source version and cleaning up the codebase, but Branch asked him to quit both projects.
The future
It seems unlikely that Branch himself will update the application any more; for that matter, the last update to the stable version is from May 2024, the last beta from June 2024. Should there still be an update, it remains to be seen whether it will offer as much refinement and innovation as Barry put into the app. For now, not much will change for Nova Launcher users, but this may change in the future, when new Android versions appear, for instance.
There are plenty of alternatives available in the Google Play Store. Among others, Action Launcher is a popular alternative. Which launcher do you prefer to use?
