About two years ago, the very popular and full-featured Android launcher Nova Launcher was acquired by mobile links and analytics company Branch. This obviously caused quite the stir, and ever since, whenever Nova is mentioned online, people point out what kind of company acquired Nova and that you probably should be looking for an alternative. While Branch claimed, as the acquiring party always does, that nothing was going to change, most people, including myself, were skeptical.
Several decades covering this industry have taught me that acquisitions like this pretty much exclusively mean doom, and usually signal a slow but steady decline in quality and corresponding increase in user-hostile features. I’m always open to being proven wrong, but I don’t have a lot of hope.
↫ Thom Holwerda
Up until a few days ago, I have to admit I was wrong. Nova remained largely the same, got some major new features, and it really didn’t get any worse in any meaningful way – in fact, Nova just continued to get better, adopted all the new Android Material You and other features, and kept communicating with its users quite well. After a while, I kind of forgot all about Nova being owned by Branch, as nothing really changed for the worse. It’s rare, but it happens – apparently.
So I, and many others who were skeptical at first as well, kept on using Nova. Not only because it just continued being what I think is the best, most advanced, and most feature-rich launcher for Android, but also because… Well, there’s really nothing else out there quite like Nova. I’m sure many of you are already firing up the comment engine, but as someone who has always been fascinated by alternative, non-stock mobile device launchers – from Palm OS, PocketPC, and Zaurus, all the way to the modern day with Android – I’ve seen them all and tried them all, and while the launcher landscape is varied, abundant, and full of absolutely amazing alternatives for every possible kind of user, there’s nothing else out there that is as polished, feature-rich, fast, and endlessly tweakable as Nova.
So, I’ve been continuing to use Nova since the acquisition, interchanged with Google’s own Pixel Launcher ever since I bought a Pixel 8 Pro on release, with Nova’s ownership status relegated to some dusty, barely used croft of my mind. As such, it came as a bit of a shock this week when it came out that Branch had done a massive round of lay-offs, including firing the entire Nova Launcher team, save for Nova’s original creator, Kevin Barry. Around a dozen or so people were working on Nova at Branch, and aside from Barry, they’re all gone now.
Once the news got out, Barry took to Nova Launcher’s website and released a statement about the layoffs, and the future of Nova.
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.
↫ Kevin Barry
This sounds great, and I’m glad the original creator will keep control over Nova. However, with such a massive culling of developers, it only makes sense that any future plans will have to be scaled down, and that’s exactly what both Barry and other former team members are saying. First, Rob Wainwright, who was laid off, wrote the following in Nova’s Discord:
To be clear, Nova development is not stopping. Kevin is remaining at Branch as Nova’s only full time developer. Development will undoubtedly slow with less people working on the app but the current plan is for updates to continue in some form.
↫ Rob Wainwright
Barry followed up with an affirmation:
I am planning on wrapping up some Nova 8.1 work and getting more builds out. I am going to need to cut scope compared to what was planned.
↫ Kevin Barry
In other words, while development on Nova will continue, it’s now back to being a one-man project, which will have some major implications for the pace of development. It makes me wonder if the adoption of the yearly drop of new Android features will be reduced, and if we’re going to see much more unresolved bugs and issues. On top of that, one has to wonder just how long Branch is for this world – they’ve just laid off about a hundred people, so what will happen to Barry if Branch goes under? Will he have to find some other job, leaving even less time for Nova development? And if Branch doesn’t go under, it is still clearly in dire financial straits, which must make somehow monetising Nova users in less pleasant ways come into the picture.
The future of Nova was definitely dealt a massive blow this week, and I’m fearful for its future. Again.
Nova is great and I’ve used it on and off for as long as I can remember. But… It’s kinda feature complete at this point. How many new features will bring new customers into Nova that arnt already persuaded? I’d suggest the investment into a large team wasnt actually sustainable when you consider the potential growth market for the app. If anything, with multiple OEMs locking things down further, their market is Shrinking.
While I feel for those let go, I can’t say I’m surprised. Retaining the lead means they continue to get the (likely diminishing) revenue stream without the ongoing overhead.
Pretty much this, it does its job and just needs a small team (or one guy) to maintain it.
If they have a large team of devs, then those devs need to justify their existence by adding feature creep, features which users may not want and may just contribute unnecessary bloat.
Given its popularity, wouldn’t now be a good time to try to liberate it?
Since branch doesn’t seem to really want the application anymore, it should be possible to collect the required sum plus a nice starting fund for the dev.
At this point, while I’m happy to pay to support apps, I’m limiting myself to paying for Open Source apps on android.
I don’t trust skeevy companies not to screw me over by “updating” with some security hole or jail my data or whatever.
https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair
https://github.com/Neamar/KISS
https://github.com/tanujnotes/Olauncher
https://github.com/MM2-0/Kvaesitso
In the past couple of years i have bee using Lawnchair, downloaded and installed normally. Don’t know if it’s still developed or if it will ever get on F-Droid, or what the future plans are, it works. And i am happy with it.
I have used this a long time ago. I’m just using bare Android these days.
However, I’m bored with the Android look, and I wish there were something like Windows Metro.
What exactly was the monetization scheme for Nova Launcher (so they can pay those developers)? I mean, it’s an app launcher, your phone already comes with one, people aren’t going to tolerate ads to have a slightly better app launcher.
You can pay for a Pro (or Prime?) license that unlocks some extra features. There aren’t any “must have” features behind the paywall, they’re mostly helpful tweaks and quality-of-life improvements for those who really like to tweak their launcher settings.
I paid for the license a couple years back, but don’t remember what the feature I needed was.
Part of the loyalty stems from this pay once model. It costs only a few pounds and it’s mine with all the updates. Flip side, means I’ll never give them any more money despite using it every day for years… … Which isn’t a great buisness model…
From what I gather, the plan was to integrate the sesame search app and use it for analytics for the parent company.
Not sure if that ever got implemented, though.
This will not be popular… but…
I think Nova needed a subscription model.
I remember buying it many years ago…
Okay found it:
It has been 10 years! And I had to pay them only once for all the software updates in between (I have not used them for the last few years, though).
That is unfortunately not sustainable.
Of course I would not be willing to pay for a subscription, as many of us would not. So that causes a conondurum:
1. Offer the app for “free” with intrusive ads
2. Offer the app for one time payment, but depend on “infinite growth” to sustain yourself
3. Offer the app for a subscription, have a smaller but dedicated customer base.
sukru,
That is quite the dilemma. Maybe some kinds of software just don’t have a viable business model no matter what you. The author might not be able to pay the bills despite the software being useful. I’ve found this to be the case with some FOSS projects being discontinued because it couldn’t sustain developers.
Another option for your list could be having some corporate benefactor willing to take a project on as a loss leader. Old google might have been a good example of this, but long term even those projects have been cancelled too.
Alfman,
Tell me about it… 🙂
Currently there are still some open source projects that come from large companies (like Meta -> pytorch / llama / react, or Microsoft -> typescript / vscode), those are dependencies of their primary work, and not “good will / donations” like the older Google.
The problem with “complete” software is (like Nova here), you still need to maintain it, update it for later OS versions, fix bugs that come from it, improve security, and still provide customer service, even if everything is free.
And if you are popular, doing these becomes and even larger chore.
This would actually be acceptable, but once again, the software would be revenue negative and significantly time consuming.
sukru,
Absolutely. I think lots of university students in particular are enthusiastic to start projects that are of personal interest and can provide value to others too. But long term the project maintenance can turn into unpaid work. Meanwhile life happens, priorities change, and everything competes for time ((jobs/marriage/kids/etc)..
I don’t follow your meaning. An author not being able to pay the bills is acceptable in what sense?
Alfman, yes I might need to be more specific.
If you have a passion project and it does not bring revenue to cover fixed costs, that would still be okay for many people. We can take on costs like server hosting or some licenses.
However if it requires you to spend more of your money to go negative yourself, and of course also the time, most people will be unable to do so.
sukru,
Wow…we weren’t thinking about the same thing at all.
I was thinking about cases when “the author might not be able to pay the bills” inclusive of whatever the users were paying. Your response sounded unusually cruel for you. Haha.
I agree to the extent that the community express interest in providing financial support. It doesn’t always work out though as It’s quite common for both individuals and businesses to freeload software.