The End of an Era? Nova Launcher’s Future Is Now in Doubt

According to Daily CyberSecurity, Nova Launcher’s future has become uncertain following a series of corporate upheavals at Branch, which acquired the launcher in 2022 along with its 12‑member development team. During the 2024 layoffs, the entire Nova Launcher team was dismissed, leaving only founder Kevin Barry, who had been preparing to release the codebase as open source.

For the past several months, Barry had been cleaning up and readying the project for open sourcing, but Branch ultimately ordered him to halt both development and open‑sourcing efforts. Now that Barry has departed from Branch, he will no longer be involved in the launcher’s development, and Branch may need to reorganise its own team to continue work.

The article notes that the promise of open‑sourcing appears almost certainly lost, and Branch’s plans remain unclear, with potential outcomes including continued development or suspension of updates.