Nova Launcher, Savior of Cruft-Filled Android Phones, Is On Life Support (arstechnica.com) 28
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Back in July 2022, when mobile app metrics firm Branch acquired the popular and well-regarded Nova Launcher for Android, the app's site put up one of those self-directed FAQ posts about it. Under the question heading "What does Branch want with Nova?," Nova founder and creator Kevin Barry started his response with, "Not to mess it up, don't worry!" Branch (formerly/sometimes Branch Metrics) is a firm concerned with helping businesses track the links that lead into their apps, whether from SMS, email, marketing, or inside other apps. Nova, with its Sesame Search tool that helped users find and access deeper links -- like heading straight to calling a car, rather than just opening a rideshare app -- seemed like a reasonable fit. Barry wrote that he had received a number of acquisition offers over the years, but he didn't want to be swallowed by a giant corporation, an OEM, or a volatile startup. "Branch is different," he wrote then, because they wanted to add staff to Nova, keep it available to the public, and mostly leave it alone.
Two years later, Branch has left Nova Launcher a bit too alone. As documented on Nova's official X (formerly Twitter) account, and transcripts from its Discord, as of Thursday Nova had "gone from a team of around a dozen people" to just Barry, the founder, working alone. The Nova cuts were part of "a massive layoff" of purportedly more than 100 people across all of Branch, according to now-former Nova workers. Barry wrote that he would keep working on Nova, "However I have less resources." He would need to "cut scope" on an upcoming Nova release, he wrote. Other employees noted that customer support, marketing, and even correspondence would likely be strained or disappear. "While Nova is not dead (despite mine and others' eulogistic tones), it's certainly not positioned to launch bold new features or plot new futures," writes Ars' Kevin Purdy, in closing. "Here's hoping Barry can make a go of Nova Launcher for as long as it's viable for him."
Two years later, Branch has left Nova Launcher a bit too alone. As documented on Nova's official X (formerly Twitter) account, and transcripts from its Discord, as of Thursday Nova had "gone from a team of around a dozen people" to just Barry, the founder, working alone. The Nova cuts were part of "a massive layoff" of purportedly more than 100 people across all of Branch, according to now-former Nova workers. Barry wrote that he would keep working on Nova, "However I have less resources." He would need to "cut scope" on an upcoming Nova release, he wrote. Other employees noted that customer support, marketing, and even correspondence would likely be strained or disappear. "While Nova is not dead (despite mine and others' eulogistic tones), it's certainly not positioned to launch bold new features or plot new futures," writes Ars' Kevin Purdy, in closing. "Here's hoping Barry can make a go of Nova Launcher for as long as it's viable for him."
V8 was recently released (Score:3)
I have been using Nova Launcher since forever, and they recently released Version 8.
It would be a shame to see it die, but I kind of understand why that would happen. It's all about money, and Nova Launcher probably doesn't make much, if any.
Re: (Score:3)
Nova Launcher is one of the things that makes Android bearable, especially with how vendors like changing stuff around. It may not be flashy, but it works, works well.
If the company that owns it doesn't want it, make it open source or something, so it can be maintained by someone.
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One of the few launchers that works with KLWP and KWGT, especially on Samsung.
Maintenance on Android sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Tragic, ultra-common story (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not the first great app that got bought by a shitty ad or tracking company and died as a result, and it won't be the last.
But, all is not gloom. One recent victim of this particular form of app-death-by-greed is Simple Mobile Tools: the author sold out and sold his well-regarded tools to ZippoApps [github.com].
Sure enough, the next version of the Simple Mobile Tools apps started asking unreasonable permissions to spy on unsuspecting users that had placed their trust in the apps for many years.
But here's where it got better: before ZippoApps could even turn the original apps to shit, the whole suite got forked [github.com] and all forked tools promptly appeared on F-Droid [f-droid.org], replacing the soon-to-be-contaminated originals.
The community didn't even give a single minute to that shitty ZippoApps company to generate any profit from their acquisition.
And you know what? For once, Big Data got the shaft nice and deep from the free software community, and that makes me feel real good.
The best launcher is No Launcher (Score:2)
https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]
Android is dead (Score:2)
Android, as a hackable, community driven project, died years ago when Cyanogenmod disappeared and the communities surrounding it dried up.
Google, as I understand it, largely fostered this collapse with their hostility. The hardware vendors and their lack of standardization and hostility also helped in that matter.
It's been a slow decline ever since and a lot of the things that used to make Android useful and powerful to geeks are no longer even possible. I jumped to Apple myself around 2018, tired of having
Re:Android is dead (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
At least Apple doesn't preinstall Facebook. Looking at you, Samsung.
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It's Samsung that made that decision, not Android. My Motorola phone has always been FaceBook free
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It's Samsung that made that decision, not Android. My Motorola phone has always been FaceBook free
Same with my Nokia.
The good thing about Android is that it's not just one company running it. If Nokia does something to annoy me, I've options for days. If Apple does something to annoy an Apple user, their options are extremely limited (limited to suck it up or give up everything you've bought on our platform).
Re: (Score:2)
How do you figure?
I've had the same supported and updated iPhone since 2018. That's 6 years, probably have another year or so left. Not a single Android phone I had received updates for more than a year - not that I ever wanted them, because they usually resulted in a slower and less stable device.
Messing with android may have started as a nerdy hobby, but it was ultimately a means to an end. In this case, easy convenience (and security) beats out the freedom of flexibility. And with android backsliding so
Re:Android is dead (Score:4, Interesting)
The difficulty in rooting phones has increased, especially with how changing the main OS image will result in breaking updates, due to the way updates are done with changed blocks, as opposed to files. The best thing out there is/was Magisk so one can add things as root like kernel level iptables/nftables entries to block ads and crapware from phoning home.
I miss projects like xPrivacy which not just could block apps, but feed them bogus data. Want lists of contacts? Here is a bogus list. Want to listen to the mic? Here is some random static. This sort of stuff came in handy with basic apps that wanted every permission under the sun, so if they wanted what's on the camera, they got something. Tools like that greatly helped with privacy.
Long time Nova Launcher user (Score:2)
As a long time paid Nova launcher user, this is sad news. (Note: I don't pay for any apps but I got a $50 google gift card a few years ago, so I jumped on this one)
The interface and myriad of helpful setting options are a million times better than any stock launcher that I've ever seen.
Save NOVA!
Shame, used it for years (Score:1)
Ah, clickbait (Score:5, Informative)
The headline is full of ads for clickbait shit as usual. Meanwhile the actual post on the official site explaining what happened is of course left out, because it's far less "oh my god, everything is on fire".
https://novalauncher.com/nova-... [novalauncher.com]
Quote of the entire post below (short summary: Nova is going back to being a single dev project, as it was through most of its existence. Two guys got fired: customer support guy and guy who did some additional contract work):
---
I'm Kevin Barry, the original creator and primary developer of Nova Launcher. This week Branch parted ways with some employees including people involved with Nova. We recognize this decision is a blow to individuals who have done great work at Nova and Branch and will do great work in the future. We thank them for all their hard work and we wish them the best. I personally really learned a lot from so many of my coworkers and treasure my time with them.
There has been confusion and misinformation about the Nova team and what this means for Nova. I'd like to clarify some things. The original Nova team, for many years, was just me. Eventually I added Cliff to handle customer support, and when Branch acquired Nova, Cliff continued with this role. I also had contracted Rob for some dev work prior to the Branch acquisition and some time after the acquisition closed we were able to bring him onboard as a contractor at Branch. The three of us were the core Nova team
However, I've always been the lead and primary contributor to Nova Launcher and that hasn't changed. I will continue to control the direction and development of Nova Launcher.
Re: (Score:2)
Clickbait aside, what's the difference?
He's back down to one person because Branch canned the rest.
The "official" post seems to be saying that's it's not a bad thing because there was a "core team" of only three, but still, having 2/3 of the "core team" fired is probably... not great...
"I lost 2/3 of my core staff (one of which was a contractor in the first place) and also all of the rest but don't worry I can do it myself" is not exactly encouraging.
Re: (Score:2)
Read carefully and apply reading comprehension. He lost customer support rep and a contractor. The actual amount of people that was needed to run the project before investor money came in enabling spending more is one.
And that one is still there.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, but the people he hired (presumably he hired them for a valid reason) are now gone and he's yoked to a parent company that clearly doesn't prioritize his work. It's harder to maintain/extend a project like this than to start it (it's mostly maintaining a kajillion special cases for various system configs, and that number is only increasing).
He has the same resources but is in a worse position.
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And this is even assuming that everyone Branch hired (and then fired) had some kind of extraneous parasite position. This does not seem to be in the facts presented, maybe some of them were doing the drudge work which is now all on the sole maintainer.
I suggest you work on your own reasoning skills.
Re: (Score:2)
You're still not applying reading comprehension. I'll make it simple one last time.
He's stating that they were hired when money from investors came in. The reason for their hiring was investor money. Currently, investor money has dried up due to high interest rates. So he's back to situation without investor money, which was status quo through most of the life of the project.
So no, he does not have same resources. He has less resources. Investor money has dried up. But his position hasn't significantly chan
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"But his position hasn't significantly changed on development side from initial one." citation needed.
the rest of your ranting has been ignored.
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At least you're honest about not being able to read anything beyond a sentence or two this time.
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The difference is that as sole proprietor he had access to 100% of the proceeds from the sale of his product plus final say on how it was marketed. As an employee he has only whatever salary.and authority Branch is willing to grant him. He is therefore in a weaker position than he was as a single operator before he sold the project.
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Sure. But in this case, he makes a good point that it's in effectively permanent (as long as parent company remains in the same business) interest of the parent company to just let him do his thing, while funding his work.
So he's stronger off in that he knows he'll get funding to do it himself as it's an investment for the parent, rather than spend time and effort begging for premium purchases.
Lawnchair (Score:2)
send beer: https://github.com/LawnchairLa... [github.com]
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I have some random Android as a work-issued phone. Lawnchair was the first thing I installed to minimize the Samsung nonsense.
no useless features (Score:2)
Do a mature launcher needs that many major features? It needs a display with icons and a drawer with some more icons, the user tap on icons and apps are launched. There is no need for a huge team to maintain such an app.
Look, I use MATE as my Linux desktop and it is the same thing: gives me some icons there I can launch apps, no need for more bullshit added on top.