I know there's still quite a few people out there that follow me because of Nova Launcher, and likely always will. So I wanted to give a little heads up about something.
Nova Launcher 8.1.3 was released yesterday to what appears to be those that are signed up as beta testers in the Google Play Store.
This is a very legit release, signed by Branch and is totally safe to use. It appears to have a lot of new stuff that we had been working on prior to the layoffs last August.
A lot of rumors out there are going around that this was released to keep Nova available on the Play Store as there is a deadline of today to target newer versions of Android.
That's likely true to some degree, but I feel there's more to it, such as it allows Branch to not have to open-source Nova at this time, because this makes them look as if they are going to maintain Nova going forward.
Unfortunately that's not something we'll ever know the correct answer to as to why this update happened.
Regardless, this keeps Nova working a good bit longer for those that are still using it and want to continue using it going forward.
Another thing I'd like to add to this is, there was an unofficial/knock-off Nova Launcher Lives Discord server claiming that the APK file was leaked and that it was leaked by a former employee. That is ABSOLUTELY FALSE!
Thankfully @apex was made aware of this situation and had the person who made that horrendous statement change it with correct wording.
If you don't have the update yet, but would like it, you can always get the APK file from the ModMyDevice Discord server, which is what used to be the official Nova Launcher Discord server for well over 6 years. We rebranded it after the layoffs since Branch had no interest in keeping the Discord. You can join via this link:
https://discord.gg/modmydevice
This is currently all of the information I have and know at this time. I would assume Branch did sneak in any weird, suspicious code, but I'm sure there are people out there that will teardown the APK and find out for sure and let everyone know if there is anything to be worried about. I want to believe there isn't, but again, who really knows.
#Nova #NovaLauncher #GooglePlay #Android #Apps #GooglePlayStore #Updates #Beta #Discord #ModMyDevice