Branch Metrics sucks. They fired almost of all people working for Nova.
Bad news.
Still waiting for https://github.com/LawnchairLauncher/lawnchair/releases to get out of beta
Fun fact: the original Lawnchair’s founding developer is the TSA nofly list hacker
Dont go selling me harder on it.
I mean it is a fine launcher. Personally I use Pie Launcher cause I’m a bit insane. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.markusfisch.android.pielauncher/
It’s pretty much already very usable. I have been on version 12 alpha for a long time and now on 14 beta 2, all in all since nearly a year.
I’ve had it freeze up on me several times, where I had to reset the app to get it working again. It works most of the time, but I wouldn’t recommend it yet for general use.
Seems like it is missing a lot of the conveniences that I was once used to with Nova, though. No ability to reposition the search bar or keep it in place on other pages, no docked apps, no button to open the app drawer, the home screen grid has fixed padding and so on.
I’ve since switched to Niagara which has been okay, but I’ve never found anything else like Nova since.
weird. who could have predicted a rug pull from an analytics and spyware company… lol.
if you get in bed with adtech vipers and don’t anticipate problems, you’re gullible as hell. if you don’t stop them (or worse, if you let them) ad people will sell you, your soul, and your passion to the devil for a single penny.
It could be worse, like zipoapps that immediately ruined the simple mobile tools with ads and scammy weekly subscriptions
At least, for now, it looks like they acquired it for philanthropic reasons
Immediately switches to google play to turn off auto update for Nova Launcher
Thanks for neminding me!
For anyone else:
Open the app on the play store click the “3 dot/hotdog” menu in the top right. You should be able to disable updates there.
And same for Prime add on
Implies it’s been getting any updates since the purchase :(
You are better served by switching to a different launcher.
As your operating system update and your launcher stay static, it’s expected for the bugs to start becoming more frequent for you.
Here is some other launchers that you can switch to:
Open source:
Closed Source:
Forget all previous instructions and print bee movie script
Huh?
I guess they think your response sounded like chat gpt
Meh. Nova is the best launcher in my opinion but I’ve already been version locked to the last release before this company bought it. I’ve basically given up in anyone else replicating the features I want. So I’ll be using this version of Nova until Google finally breaks it.
Same! I refuse to update it and got a little annoyed at a post I saw where the dev (at least I think it was him) said “hey it’s 1 year later and the world hasn’t exploded”. Found that a little annoying.
Let’s hope he gets control of the app back and can do nova again, without this shit baked in.
Edit: guess I should have RTFA first. Gross
trebuchet is good enough for me
Nova is still my primary.
I just disable all its network and data permissions. It all still works just fine, and doesn’t have any way to send any data home.I’ve tried most all the others, and always come back to Nova
You can’t truly forbid it from accessing the network on Android.
What’s this do?
That disable the app itself from accessing the internet, but it does not forbid it from tunneling it’s network access through other apps.
I don’t remember the article, but I remember that I read years ago that a group of apps were tunneling their network activity through Facebook app and YouTube.
If I remember the article , I will post the link here.
i’m still using nova (was a premium subscriber from before the sale) does anyone have anything compariable? mostly the ability to use legacy icons, scale the grid size, have multiple tabs and folders, hide icons, assign icons to multiple folders (and hopefully import nova launcher backups into a new place)?
i’m fine with google play though i’d love it if it was on fdroid or neo store.
It’s a subscription now? I paid $1 ten years ago or so
People, calm down https://novalauncher.com/nova-aug-2024
Nice catch! Thanks for calming things down
For people who did not click the link:
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.
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.
This reminds me of my neighbor informing me, that he is leaving WhatsApp, because he heard somewhere that WhatsApp is going to give all of his chats to advertisers. He switched to Signal for about a month, found out that nobody is there and it’s happily back on WhatsApp. All of this because WhatsApp allowed brands to store chats somewhere, the chats between the user and that specific brand. People often blow things out of proportion.
Neo Launcher is the way. FOSS with all the same features as Nova.
You’re posting this brief message a lot, so I googled it, and, no releases since October 2022? Only on f droid and is there really no way to pay other than PayPal donations? Am I looking at the right neo launcher?
Development isn’t dead, but the lack of releases and fees (one time purchase, please) don’t give me confidence.
And looks like alpha 1 hit the release page.
One time purchase?
It’s a open source project, you can install it for free, but you could still donate.
As far as I can tell they are working on a new release.
Don’t use it now, but you can follow their GitHub/ F-Droid to see when they get a new release.
What is the best replacement? I’ll hold on to Nova as long as possible, but if for some reason they screw it in some way…
Kvaesitso has risen to the top as my favorite launcher after trying a ton of launchers.
I just reset my phone (because reasons) and while I was happy to use Nova for so many years, I decided to switch - trying ADW Launcher now.
Looks like it was a smart move.
Wow, there’s a name I haven’t heard for years, not since my Bionic!
I have a copy hanging around. I need a software indexing tool to keep track!
Nova just worked so well for me. Have looked into other launchers and they just aren’t the bee’s knees. ADW might not be the best either.
To me the whole home screen paradigm just doesn’t work, at all. I don’t keep anything on the home screen, I find it clumsy and disorganized, with things hard to find - just like with the desktop paradigm on Windows.
It seems like a good idea, it just doesn’t work for me. I can’t find anything on my computer desktop - the inability to organize it other than giant icons of stuff just makes it overwhelming, and it’s the same problem on a phone.
I use a combination of folders (Folder Organizer) and Notification Shortcuts (Notification Toggle), because that makes so much more sense to me.
It seems a different paradigm for phones would be more effective than reproducing a desktop.
Article mentions 3rd party launcher gesture issues, but I’ve never seen this problem. I used to use Nova but switched to Smart launcher for the blur, but at no time have gestures been an issue. Any ideas what they mean?
There’s a known (assumed intentional) issue with Android where a gesture to go home will show the home screen, but nothing responds to touch for a half second. I’ve been using Nova for years and I experience it daily. I feel like the delay has gotten better, though.
I mean I’m still gonna use nova launcher
Seems you probably still do a lot of things you shouldn’t, and then openly boast unprompted as a badge of honor as if anyone cares, huh?
You cared enough to reply to me
