Almost everyone working at Nova Launcher has been fired

Almost the entire team working Nova Launcherone of the biggest names in Android home screen replacements, has been fired. The team is now down to just one full-time developer: Kevin Barry, the launcher’s founder.

Barry said development will continue and that he will remain in charge of the project. But the staff members who were fired said they work at Nova will have to slow downand Barry has already posted that it needs to “reduce the scope” of the next major version 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 fired developers, on the project’s Discord.

Nova has been on hold in the Android Launcher community for years, offering a highly customizable twist on the platform’s default home screen options. The app was acquired by Branch, a mobile analytics company, in July 2021. Branch is now laying off more than 100 people across the company, including most of the Nova team, according to Cliff Wade, relationship lead. with the Nova Launcher client. Previously, there were “about a dozen people” working at Nova, Wainwright said.

The launcher will continue to work for those who already use it. And although the launcher was developed by a team many years ago, in the beginning it was the task of a single developer. “The original Nova team, for many years, was just me,” Barry wrote in a post today, reflecting on the layoffs.