Nova Launcher is one of, if not the greatest third-party launcher apps on Android. It recently came under new ownership this year by Instabridge, a Sweden-based technology company that works in the eSIM and WiFi hotspot space.
When they took over, the company said, “Nova needs a sustainable business model to support ongoing development and maintenance. We are exploring different options, including paid tiers and other approaches.” Fast forward to this week and we now know what they might’ve been referring to.
Discovered inside the Nova Launcher v8.6.8 beta, there are various code strings that point to what Instabridge is looking to cook up. There are multiple things being worked on, all (or none) of which could make their way to actual Nova users. There’s an AI assistant which will eat its way through your calendar, contacts, and app usage to provide contextual insights, an AI chatbot, code hinting at a new subscription model called Nova Plus (separate from Nova Prime which is a one-time purchase), as well as a Nova Mobile phone plan management tool.
That’s a lot of stuff.
Living inside the launcher itself, Nova AI would be available to those who subscribe to Nova Plus, a subscription service that could likely be billed monthly or annually. With the AI, you wouldn’t have to open another app for your AI needs, plus we assume it would be easily accessible via Nova Launcher. Somewhat interestingly, Nova AI setup is shown to explicitly require signing in with a Google account. When using it, the AI can get resources from the web or locally on your device, but it will always cite its source for your knowledge.
Contextual AI abilities, while nice, can give some users the ick. Based on your phone usage, Nova AI could theoretically anticipate your needs, but that means there would be a lot of combing through your usage and what you do on your device. Should you grant all of the access Nova AI would desire, you can get location-based suggestions, calendar-based reminders, message reminders with contact access, and plenty else.
Pricing: We don’t yet have pricing information for Nova AI or a Nova Prime subscription service. Details on Nova Mobile, a service that could help you manage your phone plan, are also very limited with no official details yet from Instabridge.
Nova Launcher was once a very simple, yet feature rich launcher application. In the future, it could be much more than that. Is that intriguing to us, the fans? No, not particularly. Both Google and Samsung (and every other phone maker on the planet) have been injecting so much AI at the system level, that the need for 3rd-party apps to also offer it seems both redundant and overkill. However, if someone thinks these features could be useful and is willing to pay, more power to them. We don’t judge.
