this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2024
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Branch Metrics sucks. They fired almost of all people working for Nova.

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[–] Blaze 102 points 4 months ago (8 children)
[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Fun fact: the original Lawnchair's founding developer is the TSA nofly list hacker

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Dont go selling me harder on it.

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[–] [email protected] 75 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (11 children)

Immediately switches to google play to turn off auto update for Nova Launcher

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 4 months ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

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

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 37 points 4 months ago (2 children)

we were all scared that they would do data mining or introduce ads on the launcher. They promised that they wouldn't. Surprisingly, they kept the promise.

I'm surprised that could feed a team of 12 devs with a free app with small one time payment to unlock power features.

Isn't the app mature enough to have a just full time dev behind to keep it updated with api changes?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Branch is apparently a $4B Silicon Valley startup, that raised $300M just two years ago. They can afford Nova's team of twelve, or at least more than one fucking dev. They even fired Cliff, the one guy doing support (social, Discord, email, etc).

That said, I wish they wouldn't have sold out. Nova is one of the few things I want to subscribe to, very well earned. Nobody can reasonably complain about $10-20 per year for "Prime Ultra" or something. I don't even see a donate button in settings.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 4 months ago (17 children)

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...

[–] [email protected] 37 points 4 months ago (4 children)

LawnChair is the best option I've tried that has a similar design to Nova.

I've tried at least a couple dozen launchers since Nova got bought. Most of them are either half-baked or have a very different design (e.g. based on radial menus or text-only lists). If you're into minimalism, there are a lot of good options. If you want a full-featured icon grid that behaves more or less like Nova, LawnChair is it.

I'm running LawnChair 14 Beta now. You can get it off the GitHub. Last I checked, the version on Google Play was very old.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Kvaesitso has risen to the top as my favorite launcher after trying a ton of launchers.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago (8 children)

I don't understand why someone would want a "search-focused" launcher. You mean I have to bring up the on-screen keyboard and type out the name of an app instead of just scrolling & tapping an icon with 1-2 simple motions? Yuck. What am I missing?

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago

Gesundheit.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I've been using Neo Launcher for a while, no complaints

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

I'm pretty happy with total launcher in combination with app search since I didn't like totals app drawer.

Edit: I just found OpenLauncher and I'm going to test that out.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

I used Smart Launcher for a couple years. Functionally, it was on par, if not better, from my perspective

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Fucking hell.

I've been using Nova for years, it's nice there are replacement recommendations on this thread.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This basically means I'll ditch Samsung, because frankly their stock launcher sucks donkey balls.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago (4 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

Nice catch! Thanks for calming things down

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] all4one 18 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'm still looking for a launcher similar to nova. The two big things I want are the swipe action on homescreen icons. For example I set the swipe up on my phone app to directly call someone. And I have the swipe up on other apps open a separate app instead. Other thing is being able to create folders of apps in the app drawer.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Aw man! I've used nova launcher for probably about a decade at this point :(

There's no way in hell I'm going back to SMASNUG's crusty launcher. What's the next best thing that isn't a beta test?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I like Lawnchair. It's open source tol

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago

I stopped using it after it switched owner anyway

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I read about this on the Nova launcher discord community. I had already moved to Smart launcher in 2022, seeing the slow development speed and the branch buyout.

Still, seeing so many people being laid off was sad.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

It sucks that people are laid off but I'm not shocked. I can't imagine the launcher raking in tons of cash. Maybe it does, but I wouldn't expect it to. Honestly I'm surprised that nova wasn't just a passion project by someone.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I replaced Nova with Kvaesitso and honestly its pretty awesome.

Its more limited than Nova was but it meets my use cases. The biggest adjustment was using labels to filter things instead of using folders, which I've actually come to like better.

But plenty of customizations for everything else you mentioned and more.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I'd heartily recommend Niagara Launcher to anyone that wants something a little different.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

It's good if that's what you want, but it is completely different from nova

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[–] AI_toothbrush 11 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Btw i recommend kvaesitso. Idk what nova is like but kvaesitso is open source, has updates and is a very nice launcher in general. Its a bit hard to set-up at first because it uses widgets but after you figure it out its really nice.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago

I've been using Nova for a very long time. It has saved me all kinds of annoyance as I've switched phone brands and OS versions, since my basic UI has remained consistent.

Unless it actually takes a dive in quality, I will continue to use it, but this is disappointing news.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Isn't ADW already dead for years? Last update on f-droid was 13 years ago.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (3 children)

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!

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (3 children)

I looked for a new launcher when the sale was anounced a year ago and was sad to find no launvhers I can customize that much.

I went for Kvaesitso (https://github.com/MM2-0/Kvaesitso also on F-Droid) and stuck with it since. I really like the concept althought it might not be for everyone.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Neo Launcher is the way. FOSS with all the same features as Nova.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (5 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (3 children)

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

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