Almost all employees at Nova Launcher have been laid off.

Almost the entire team is working on Nova LauncherOne of the biggest names in Android home screen replacement has been let go. The team now consists of one full-time developer: Kevin Barry, the company’s founder.

Barry said development It will continue And that he will remain in charge of the project. But the team members who were laid off said that work at Nova You will have to slow down.And Barry has Already posted It needs to “downsize” the next major release of Nova compared to what was initially planned.

“Development will undoubtedly slow down with fewer people working on the app, but the current plan is to continue updates in some form,” Rob Wainwright, one of the laid-off developers, wrote on the project’s Discord.

Nova has been an alternative in the Android Launcher community for years, offering a highly customizable twist on the platform’s standard home screen options. The app was acquired by Branch, a mobile analytics firm, in July 2022. Branch is now laying off more than 100 people across the company, including the bulk of the Nova team, according to Cliff Wade, Nova Launcher’s head of customer relations. Wainwright said there were “about a dozen people” working at Nova previously.

The driver will continue to work for anyone who already uses it. Although the driver has been developed by a team for many years now, it was originally the job of a single developer. “The original Nova team was, for many years, just me,” Barry wrote in a post today, reflecting on the layoffs.