Nova Launcher isn’t dead: Branch pushes 8.1.3/8.1.4 as original team departs

For months, Nova Launcher fans feared the worst. In September, longtime developer Kevin Barry confirmed he’d left Branch Metrics, the company that acquired Nova in 2022—fueling worries that the beloved Android launcher had reached the end of the road. Then, last week, a surprise v8.1.3 build began hitting devices. And now there’s already another one: a v8.1.4 beta.

What 8.1.3 actually was

When 8.1.3 landed, former Nova developer Rob Wainwright clarified that the update largely consisted of older work the original team had completed over a year ago but never shipped. He also stressed a crucial point:

The original Nova team no longer works at Branch, and they can’t make promises about data collection or analytics going forward.
That caveat underscores the new reality: development continues under Branch, but not under the founding crew.

8.1.4: a quick follow-up, with stability in mind

Spotted by Reddit user Dankees98 on the Nova Launcher subreddit, v8.1.4 is already rolling out to beta testers. As the rapid cadence suggests, there are no new features here; the release is bug-fix and stability-oriented—a pragmatic move after the “back-from-the-dead” 8.1.3.

Why this matters

Even if 8.1.4 isn’t flashy, the fact that Branch is pushing fixes at all is encouraging. For users, active maintenance beats abandonment, especially for a launcher so deeply baked into daily workflows. Still, open questions remain:

• Will Nova see regular maintenance updates in the coming months?
• Could new features return, or is the near-term roadmap mostly stability?
• Who exactly is stewarding the code now—and how will privacy/analytics be handled?

For now, the takeaway is simple: Nova’s story isn’t over. The brand lives on at Branch, updates are shipping again, and the community has reason to keep watching.