Summary
- Beta version 8.0.17 of Nova Launcher was recently released, with improvements for users migrating from version 7.
- Nova Launcher stands out for its customization and open access, making it a top choice among Android users globally.
- The acquisition of Nova Launcher by analytics company Branch in 2022 was seen as a strategic move to enhance in-app linking on smart devices.
Two of the biggest reasons why Android has held its popularity around the world is its levels of customization and open access it provides compared to its rivals over the years, such as Apple’s iOS. Custom Android launchers, which allow users to completely change the way they interact with their smart devices, have showcased this platform’s openness. There’s no question in our minds over which launcher is the best (even though there are plenty of solid options). The mainstay Nova Launcher has been available to the public since 2012, and its latest beta version was just released.
Nova Launcher 8 was given out to the public almost two years ago, and that’s the version that is still being altered and updated with incremental releases ever since. Beta version 8.0.17 was released today with a small list of updates. Besides the prototypical “bug fixes,” the changelog says that the latest version improves the migration for users from Nova Launcher 7 and fixes the Fallback and Best Of color picker options. Through the Nova Launcher bug reports channel on Discord, only one issue had been reported by a user using this version by the time this article was published; the App Drawer search bar is apparently glitching on a Galaxy S10 Lite running Android 13.
Nova Launcher was acquired in 2022 by analytics company Branch
Back in 2022, Branch, an analytics company that specializes in “deep linking and mobile attribution,” acquired Nova Launcher. The company aims to make branching (pun intended) in-app links to other parts of the user interface on smart devices easier (via TechCrunch). Branch had its technology and know-how integrated into over 100,000 apps as of 2022, and it has partnered with big tech names such as Adobe and BuzzFeed. Acquiring the most well-known Android launcher was seemingly the perfect marriage of its company’s purpose and Nova’s use case.
The most-recent stable version of Nova Launcher (8.0.16) was released on April 24. Before that, a host of updates were included in the changelog for beta version 8.0.15, including multiple improvements to Google Searches such as web suggestions and improved assistant support. Back in February, the then-latest beta build of Nova added Google Gemini support and support for Android 13’s per-app language settings.
