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Nova Launcher 7 goes live with a visual refresh and new features in tow (APK Download)
Widget corner radius, swipe down gesture, and more
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Nova Launcher has always been among the most popular third-party launchers, even with great alternatives like Niagara popping up left and right. After what felt like months of stagnation, the latest visual refresh and rewrite of Nova is finally starting to roll out on the Play Store, dubbed Nova7. It's based on the latest AOSP launcher code and comes with new animations, styles, and features.
With over 50 million installs, Nova clearly leads the launcher clan, and the reason for that general approval is nothing short of its plethora of customization options. If you’ve been patiently waiting for a deal to unlock more premium-tier features, now is the time to hit that buy button, as the developer is being a bit generous for the holiday season. Nova Launcher Prime can be bought for just $1 in the US, while those living elsewhere can save even more.
Nova Launcher just received a new update, v6.1, which adds the awesome and coveted dark mode for the Google Discover pane. It also gets numeric dots for notification badges without the need for TeslaUnread, an undo bar when removing desktop items, and more.
It's been nearly seven months since Nova Launcher v6.0-beta 1 was released in early August 2018, and now it's time for the stable version to hit the masses. TeslaCoil Software began rolling out v6.0 stable of its popular custom launcher to the Play Store yesterday, and it comes with a fairly lengthy list of enhancements and new features. If for some reason you still don't see the latest version of Nova in the Play Store, APK Mirror has the cure for your impatience.
This year has been a tumultuous one for Huawei. The company launched one good smartphone after the other, whether on the low end of the spectrum with the Nova series, or in the high-end market with its P20 and Mate 20 series. It also faced stiff regulatory opposition and found itself caught in the midst of a political/economical war between the US and China. From seeing its deals to enter the US market vanish with AT&T and Verizon to having its CFO arrested in Canada, the rollercoaster of Huawei's 2018 hasn't slowed down. But the company is ending its year on a high note and with one number worth celebrating: it shipped over 200 million smartphones in 2018.
Nova Launcher 6.0 beta 5 just launched yesterday, and while not a major update, it does include a couple of notable features. First, as the title of this post says, you can now launch the full Google Assistant directly from the search widget on the homescreen. It's not enabled by default, though, so you'll have to go digging into the settings to locate the slightly obscure toggle. To do so, launch the Nova Settings apps, go to 'desktop,' hit 'search bar style' about halfway down the list, then scroll all the way to the bottom of the following menu. You'll see to the right of the 'Voice search' toggle is now a drop-down menu with the options 'Classic' and 'Assistant.' Classic is the old Google voice actions interface that then launches the Assistant depending on the initiated action, whereas the new Assistant option will launch the full Assistant interface instantly.
TeslaCoil has just released its first Nova Launcher update in three months. Version 6.0-beta1 is here with a very long changelog, most of which concerns additional customization options. But with Nova being a custom launcher, that's not entirely unexpected. We also have the APK over on APK Mirror if you need it.
Huawei has a tendency of overcrowding various Asian and European markets with fairly similar devices released both under the company’s own name and the online-focused Honor sub-brand. But the all-new Nova 3 certainly feels special, even if it looks a lot like the P20... and the Honor 10.
If you’re a Nova Launcher fan running the second Android P Developer Preview, you may have noticed that the two don’t play nicely together and temporarily switched to another launcher. Now you can switch back because the latest Nova update is here to quash those compatibility issues.
It's not often that apps that aren't made by a giant company or preloaded reach a threshold as monumental as 50 million downloads, but TeslaCoil Software's Nova Launcher, everyone's favorite custom launcher, has gone ahead and done just that. That's seriously impressive.
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- A new beta, 5.5-beta2, was just released for Nova Launcher, which fixes the inconsistencies we noted previously. If you ran into the "double round" problem where an already round icon would be successively nestled inside another round outline (as in the case of Google Photos and Android Pay) that's now been fixed.
One thing's sure, TeslaCoil Software is incredibly prolific. Hot on the heels of the recent Sesame Shortcuts, Nova Launcher has just added one more awesome feature: adaptive icons. V5.5-beta1 of the popular launcher allows those of us still waiting for Android 8.0 Oreo to enjoy a little taste of adaptive icons a bit early.
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- Version 5.3 of Nova Launcher is now in the stable release so you no longer need to be part of the beta. However, you still need the Nova Google Companion app to be able to see the Google Now/Feed integration on the homescreen.
Nova Launcher is the go-to launcher for so many not just for the sheer amount of customization it offers, but also the speed and frequency at which the team instills new features. However, one feature that people have constantly clamored for has always been left out: Google Now integration. It just couldn't be added due to constraints that Google had put in place. But today, Nova Launcher is finally receiving this long-awaited functionality.
One of the main downsides to using a custom launcher was that you couldn't have an easily-accessible Google Now pane. While your feed is just a swipe away on the Google Now and Pixel Launchers, other applications were barred from using it due to API restrictions. That is, until the developer of Nova Launcher found a way around it by creating the 'Nova Google Companion.'
Today at IFA Huawei introduced two new Android phones, one of which might look a little more than familiar. The nova and nova plus are now part of Huawei's high midrange smartphone lineup and you'll find that the first one carries one controversial design element from Huawei's lauded Nexus 6P.
We've been hearing (and seeing) more and more about Google's possible wireless service lately, but WSJ published a report this evening indicating that the service's launch may be even sooner than we anticipated.
We've heard a number of rumors about Google launching its own Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), codenamed Nova. According to reports, the service will source wireless service from Sprint and T-Mobile, but it will rely on Wi-Fi networks to bear most of the weight of both data and voice services (though VoIP). While the details of this plan still aren't clear, another piece of the puzzle just emerged that indicates Google is going to offer its own virtual private network (VPN) service, and it may be targeted specifically at Nova subscribers.
When it comes to alternative launchers based on the standard Android homescreen design, I think it's safe to say at this point that Nova Launcher is the best available. But developer TeslaCoil isn't resting on its laurels: the app is constantly being updated, tweaked, and improved. Today the biggest update to Nova Launcher in years is going out on its Google Play Store beta channel... and yes, it has Material Design.
In only a few short months, the idea of a Google-owned cell carrier has gone from Android fan fiction to impending reality. Since catching first wind of it, we have honed in on more detail and confirmation. Sundar Pichai's talk at Mobile World Congress left us thinking Nova would be rather small in scale, and now it's starting to become clearer how it will shape up. According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, Nova will launch with a product lineup of one device: the Nexus 6.
Several weeks ago, rumors started floating around about a purported Google MVNO codenamed Nova. It looks like that's a little more than a rumor now, as Android lead Sundar Pichai essentially spilled the beans at a talk today at Mobile World Congress. Now, before you get too excited, it looks like this is going to be on a much smaller scale than we originally thought, and is in fact not intended to go head-to-head with the Big Four. That said, Pichai didn't exactly make it clear what Google's intention actually is in terms of coverage area and services provided.