Who’s Updating Nova Launcher? Beta Version 8.1.6 Released Now

Nova Launcher, which is the most commonly used third-party Android launcher, has shocked its users by releasing a new beta update, who were under the impression that development has come to a standstill. In the month of September, the founder Kevin Barry had revealed that he would no longer be a part of the project and the reason for his departure was Branch, the analytics company that bought Nova Launcher in 2022, which is also the reason for the cessation of development as he stated he was the only developer who was taking care of the launcher maintenance.

However, contrary to the expectations, Nova Launcher keeps on coming up with the updates. The most recent 8.1.6 beta version has fixed a major bug that was making the app drawer search to crash. Users had reported that version 8.1.5 would crash every time a search was conducted in the app drawer unless the apps were limited to one row. The 8.1.6 beta has fixed the problem and has made the search feature available again without involving any workarounds.

It is still not known as to who is behind the scenes managing these updates. After Barry's departure, the expectation had been that no official team would be present to take care of the launcher. Former Nova developer Rob Wainwright said that a considerable number of the recent updates were most probably finished long back by the original team, perhaps over a year ago. He also said that the present releases may just be finished features that are being pushed live rather than ongoing development.

Some people are speculating that Branch is dealing with the negative press regarding the future of Nova Launcher by making these fixes public. The users on social media have pointed out that the updates seem to be happening at the same time as the coverage of the launcher's uncertain status, which has led to the curiosity about the company's involvement.

Nova Launcher still has a faithful user base even with all these doubts. The current beta version proves that one of the main developer’s leaving doesn’t necessarily mean the end of legacy projects; they might still be able to get new features through automatic pipelines, code scraps, or the actual company doing the maintenance.

This upgrade has brought back a very important aspect of the Android ecosystem and has also pointed out the continuous interest in supporting Nova Launcher’s existence, even when its creator isn’t around anymore.