Robert Triggs / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Nova Launcher receives yet another update with version 8.1.6 beta.
- The latest update fixes a bug that caused the launcher to crash when searching the app drawer.
- These regular updates may give the impression that someone is actively developing the launcher, but that may not be the case.
Nova Launcher is receiving a new update, despite the fact that its founder, Kevin Barry, announced in September that he would no longer be involved in its development. At the time, Barry said he was the only one working on the third-party launcher and that with his departure from Branch, the analytics company that acquired Nova Launcher in 2022, the project would no longer be maintained.
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Since then, Nova Launcher has received several consecutive updates, the latest 8.1.6 beta fix a major crash issue. According to Reddit users, the new beta, released just a few hours ago, fixes the bug that broke the app drawer research. In version 8.1.5, searching the app drawer would instantly crash the launcher unless users limited apps to a single row. Beta 8.1.6 fixes this issue, so searches now work correctly without this workaround.
Who works on Nova Launcher?
The question that puzzles users now is: who is actually making all these changes and releasing new updates for Nova Launcher? Since Barry’s departure from Branch, the company that owns Nova, no one was supposed to maintain, let alone update, the launcher.
Former Nova developer Rob Wainwright previously mentioned that most of these updates were made by the original Nova team over a year ago, suggesting that active development may have stalled and that these are simply leftover features currently being put into production.
Some users also believe that Branch could respond to the recent negative publicity surrounding the launcher’s demise by rolling out bug fixes and ready-made updates.
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