Almost the entire team working on Nova Launcherone of the biggest names in Android home screen replacements, has been let go. The team is now down to just one full-time developer: Kevin Barry, the launcher's founder.
Barry said the development To be continued and will remain in charge of the project. But the team members who were laid off said that working on Nova You will have to slow downand Barry has x.com/SolanaJax/status/1821800878094876956″>Already published which needs to “reduce the scope” of the next major release of Nova compared to what was initially planned.
“Development will undoubtedly slow down with fewer people working on the app, but the current plan is for updates to continue in some form,” wrote Rob Wainwright, one of the laid-off developers, on the project’s Discord.
Nova has been a fixture in the Android Launcher community for years, offering a highly customizable take on the platform’s standard home screen options. The app was acquired by Branch, a mobile analytics firm, in July 2022. Branch is laying off more than 100 people across the company, including most of the Nova team, according to Cliff Wade, Nova Launcher’s head of customer relations. There were previously “about a dozen people” working on Nova, Wainwright said.
The launcher will continue to work for everyone who is already using it. And while the launcher has been developed by a team for many years, it was initially the work of a single developer. “For many years, the original Nova team consisted solely of me,” Barry wrote in a post today, reflecting on the layoffs.
