The future of Nova Launcher looks increasingly uncertain after a number of key layoffs to the dev team behind the popular third-party home screen replacement.
Announced by Cliff Wade over on the official Nova Launcher Discord channel, parent company Branch has axed over 100 employees in a spate of mass layoffs from the company. This has affected key members of the team behind the third-party launcher, and the future outlook is uncertain just two years after Nova was acquired by Branch.
Another post from the official Nova Launcher X account states that the team has gone from “around a dozen” to just one full-time developer – the original founder Kevin Barry.
The original announcement post shares no further details on how Branch might handle Nova Launcher moving forward. However, in response to this very question, “app updates are planned” according to Rob Wainwright via the official Nova X account. This was expanded with another update on the official Discord confirming that the now sole developer, Kevin, is “wrapping up some Nova 8.1 work” with “more builds” with “cut scope compared to what was planned.”
In recent years, we’ve seen other launcher projects and teams encounter issues and breakdowns. So, it’s not a great look to potentially have the biggest and most well-known player in the space facing potential problems down the line. We’re hopeful that this doesn’t mean the end of Nova Launcher, but given the sheer scope of the project and the resources required to ensure it continues to be at the forefront of Android theming, it’s going to be an uphill struggle.
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