A lifelong Android user’s ode to Nova Launcher

Android’s greatest gift was always freedom. While iPhone users lived inside a walled garden of sorts, Android users were free to tinker, experiment, and carve out digital spaces of their own. But freedom without control can slip into chaos, and for years, that’s exactly what stock Android and manufacturer skins felt like. They were often clunky, cluttered, and inconsistent.

Nova Launcher was the antidote. With it, disorder became elegance. You could fine-tune every detail, from animation speeds to grid layouts. This wasn’t just customisation; it was true personalisation. For years, Nova gave Android its soul.

A constant through shifting times

Think back to Gingerbread, KitKat, Lollipop, and beyond. Each Android update promised reinvention, but usually delivered fragmentation. Samsung’s TouchWiz made flagships feel sluggish. HTC Sense buried functionality beneath glossy animations. OEMs layered their heavy skins, some so bloated they slowed phones to a crawl.

Yet Nova remained steady; a lighthouse in the storm. It didn’t matter if you carried a Galaxy or some obscure overseas brand. Nova transformed them all into something coherent, something yours.

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With every new device, tinkerers brought Nova along too, restoring not just users’ phone layout but their sense of continuity. Phones changed, brands changed, but Nova ensured your device always felt like home. For many of us, it wasn’t just another app you’d install days or months after buying a new phone; it was likely the very first install on a new Android phone.

The community of tinkerers

Nova Launcher was never only about code. It was about culture. Entire forums sprang up around it, filled with shared setups, wallpapers, and icon packs. People debated gesture shortcuts with the fervour they argued about camera specs. Nova was where Android’s true DIY spirit thrived.

The weekly setup threads became rituals. Screenshots showcased not just phones, but personalities. Some went minimal with single-page layouts. Others created elaborate multi-screen workflows. Nova democratised design, and you didn’t need to be a UX expert to create something beautiful. Double-tap to lock, swipe gestures, custom grids, each tweak reminded us that our phones could reflect who we were.

The end of an era

The app’s future came to an abrupt end following devastating layoffs at Branch, the company that acquired Nova in 2022. What began as a promising partnership crumbled when Branch slashed over 100 employees in 2024, leaving Kevin Barry as the sole developer on what was once a 12-person team. After working alone for a year, Barry announced his departure from Branch this week, effectively ending Nova’s development.

Barry has also ceased his open-sourcing efforts, meaning Nova’s code will likely never see daylight for community developers. The launcher still works, but it likely won’t see updates or keep pace with future Android versions.

Why its loss cut so deep

If Nova truly fades away, it marks the closing of Android’s most important chapter. In a world where Android increasingly mirrors iOS with uniform layouts, losing Nova means losing what once made Android revolutionary.

Today’s Android is more polished, more secure, more consistent. But it’s also more closed, more opinionated, more iPhone-like. Nova represented the Android that said, “Here’s your phone, now make it yours”.

Without it (or launchers like it that are increasingly shutting down as well), a new generation may never know the thrill of bending their devices to their will. They’ll inherit defaults, not choices. And for those of us who grew up with Nova, that feels like losing a piece of our digital identity.

An ode to Nova

So here’s to Nova Launcher, the quiet hero of Android’s golden age. The faithful companion through countless upgrades, the bridge between chaos and control, the reason so many of us stayed loyal to Android when the grass looked greener elsewhere.

Thank you for showing us that customisation didn’t have to mean complexity, that our phones could be extensions of ourselves. Thank you for keeping Android’s promise alive when Android itself seemed to forget what it had promised.

If this really is goodbye, then thank you for reminding us what digital freedom looked like.