{"id":286700,"date":"2025-11-12T05:07:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T05:07:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/286700\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T05:07:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T05:07:21","slug":"nova-launcher-just-got-another-update-despite-being-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/286700\/","title":{"rendered":"Nova Launcher just got another update despite being &#8216;dead&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img class=\"e_Gg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"eager\"  title=\"Nova Launcher title close up\"  alt=\"Nova Launcher title close up\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Nova-Launcher-title-close-up.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Robert Triggs \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n<p>TL;DR<\/p>\n<p>Nova Launcher is getting yet another update with version 8.1.6 beta.<br \/>\nThe latest update resolves a bug that was causing the launcher to crash when performing a search in the app drawer.<br \/>\nThese regular updates might seem like someone is still actively developing the launcher, but that may not be the case.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/nova-launcher-885296\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Nova Launcher<\/a> is receiving yet another update, despite its founder, Kevin Barry, announcing in September that he would no longer be involved in its development. At the time, Barry had stated that he was the only one working on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/best-android-launcher-apps-222408\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">third-party launcher<\/a>\u00a0and that with his departure from Branch, the analytics firm that acquired Nova Launcher in 2022, the project would no longer be maintained.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t want to miss the best from Android Authority?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/andauth.co\/AAGooglePreferredSource\" class=\"e_Em\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\"><img class=\"e_Gg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"google preferred source badge light@2x\"  alt=\"google preferred source badge light@2x\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/google_preferred_source_badge_light@2x.png\"\/><img class=\"e_Gg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"google preferred source badge dark@2x\"  alt=\"google preferred source badge dark@2x\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/google_preferred_source_badge_dark@2x.png\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Since then, Nova Launcher has received several back-to-back updates, with the latest <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/NovaLauncher\/comments\/1ouixfg\/nova_launcher_816_beta_released\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">8.1.6 beta<\/a> addressing a major crash issue. According to users on Reddit, the new beta, released just a few hours ago, fixes the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/NovaLauncher\/comments\/1osm5wj\/815_crashing_on_app_drawer_search_on_android_16\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">bug that broke app drawer<\/a> search. In version 8.1.5, performing a search in the app drawer would instantly crash the launcher unless users limited apps to a single row. The 8.1.6 beta resolves this problem, so searches now work properly without that workaround.<\/p>\n<p>Who is working on Nova Launcher?<\/p>\n<p>The question puzzling users now is: who\u2019s actually making all these changes and releasing new updates to Nova Launcher? Since Barry\u2019s exit from Branch, the company that owns Nova, no one was expected to maintain, let alone update, the launcher.<\/p>\n<p>Former Nova developer Rob Wainwright <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/nova-launcher-8-1-4-3613326\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">previously mentioned<\/a> that most of these updates were completed by the original Nova team over a year ago, suggesting that active development may have stalled, and these are simply leftover features being pushed to production now.<\/p>\n<p>Some users also speculate that Branch might be responding to the recent negative publicity surrounding the launcher\u2019s demise by rolling out bug fixes and updates that were already ready to go.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you for being part of our community. Read our\u00a0<a class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-authority-comment-policy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" data-stringify-link=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-authority-comment-policy\/\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\">Comment Policy<\/a> before posting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert Triggs \/ Android Authority TL;DR Nova Launcher is getting yet another update with version 8.1.6 beta. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1163,165,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-286700","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-android-launchers","9":"tag-mobile","10":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}