By Dear Mr. Carnales,
I’m sorry if you find this post intrusive, but I have a perfectly reasonable explanation for having to do so. I came across this image on Reddit, and at first I chuckled. I get it that indie-developers can’t always stay consistent with updates. However, I saw you weren’t active on Twitter either for quite some time, and I got worried.
I hope you’re enjoying your life somewhere, free from customer feedback E-Mails and making the most of the money you worked so hard to earn. You deserve it. In fact, a part of me wishes you never come across this post. But, if you do, do send out a message to let those of us in the World, who hold you in high regard for your contributions to Android through your brilliant apps, know that you’re alive and kicking.
With best regards,
Raveesh Bhalla
Former LauncherPro User, and currently using UberMusic
I hope he’s alive and kicking too! Used launcherpro all the way up until my Nexus S was updated to ICS. For some reason, it kept crashing on me so I had to give it up for the default ICS launcher. COME BACK!!!
If you’re currently on ICS try out Apex, Nova or trebuchet launcher. And definitely try Nova if your’e on Jellybean I haven’t used LP since android upgraded from 2.2 which was almost… 2 years ago.
I really hope he’s not dead….. so he can finally update launcherpro.
Do you really expect that to happen? Read the LauncherPro forums, he and his friend have been promising that forever. It’s a completely dead project that they’ve kept lying about to everyone to keep people buying it. And I think this whole thing is being blown out of proportion. People were probably googling his name and adding dead to it because they were most likely referring to his Dead projects. He needs to come out and come clean.
I heard wikipedia was a good source too for finding out if people were dead. /s
You do realize these suggested search options comes from people googling it right? We could do the same thing with Raveesh Bhalla and it would eventually come up with “Raveesh Bhalla dead” for suggested search. Anyways his facebook account shows activity in 2012 so I doubt he’s dead. Probably either busy with life.
yeah I’m starting to doubt he’s dead too because when I looked it up, there were no news whatsoever of his death.
Why would there be news if he did die? He’s not a celebrity. Not everyones death is going to be broadcast all over.
I never said he’s dead. Like I said, I chuckled when I saw the post on Reddit. But, considering he’s been pretty underground for a while, for someone who was consistent with his updates and on Twitter (where he last posted in May, and before that one tweet in Feb) I felt it would be mean to laugh at a joke about him without knowing what’s going on on his side.
Like I said, it may have been a full year since he updated on twitter/his apps but he’s had activity on his facebook account this year. Took 5 minutes of looking to figure that out. The guy is just busy or has lost interest in his apps.
And, yet again, like I wrote in the comment you just replied to, I know he’s posted on Twitter once in May (ironically replying to someone asking him if he’s dead). If only you took a couple of seconds to read my comment properly.
Additionally, the post isn’t about whether he’s “dead”. It’s to know what he’s up to considering he was once one of the most popular Android developers out there.
You do realize people can die any time right? Not just in 2011, or before their most recent Facebook activity.
Eh. I gave up waiting a long time ago. There’s better alternatives to his apps now.
typo on the article. 5th word on the 2nd paragraph.
You didn’t capitalize this first word of your first sentence…
the*
Hey Fede when we getting that rewrite?
:P
Hah!
Some ppl are just mean. I hope he is still alive for the sake of his family and friends. Who cares about his app. Speaking about a mans life who may or may not have ended. The app was a tiny part of this Mans life.
LauncherPro was the launcher I bought after I got my first android phone. but now for about a year its been GO Launcher as it has all the features of launcherpro and more for the price of $0.00. can’t beat that. launcherpro was great in its day but now its tike people should move on. at least in my opinion. Federico has left the office.
Used to love launcherpro and ubermusic but both clearly abandoned and so outdated now. Much better out there now.
That said, hope the boy is doing well and all.
Fed promised a rewrite from source and realized he couldn’t do it, so he bailed. Stand up guy right there
He’s not dead. Only his products are. I was a big LP fan for a long time, but was having some issues. I gave up waiting for the rewrite a long time ago, but I still stop by his forum every couple months to see if by chance there’s an update. One of the things I usually check when I get there is to look for any new posts from him. When going to his profile to do that, it shows when he last logged in. It always shows he’s been on the boards within the last few days. He just doesn’t participate in his forum anymore. As of right now, he logged in 4 days ago (Wed), but hasn’t posted since February.
That’s what I really don’t respect. He’s clearly watching the unhappy customers post, he just doesn’t bother responding. He should just come clean as to his plans. If he’s moved on to other things in life, that’s fine, but he should either make the product free or clearly state that the product is being sold as is without support or future updates planned. It also isn’t fully compatible with ICS, but it’s still marked as compatible in Google Play. Some of those incompatible features, like the calendar widget, are in the paid version, so people won’t find out until they pay. On top of that, until he dropped off, Fede insisted on his forum that it wasn’t dead, and even after he was long gone, one of his moderators on the forum continues to insist he’s still working on it. At this point, that can only be interpreted as an outright lie. It’s hard not to conclude that they’re intentionally misleading people about the status of the application in order to continue to get people to buy an app that doesn’t work properly on current devices — including in ways that aren’t apparent until after purchase.
jk
He wont return. It involves acknowledging a customer.
Perhaps not; but you can’t deny that some customers can be rather off-turning to the point that it makes sense to just stop dealing with them all together. Sure it sucks for the loyal, well-mannered patrons but a*****e customers are a pain.
Yeah would be awesome to integrate the Google music api into ubermusic
One day, you’re going to be on holiday in Florence, having your usual Fernet Branca. You’ll look up from your newspaper, and there he’ll be…perhaps with a wife and kids. You’ll acknowledge each other without a word, and then go your separate ways.
That sir, is a most perfectly timely reply.
haha dark knight rises nice
Are you kidding me? You sir need to watch the Batman movies again.
BEST. COMMENT. EVER.
Because he’s the hero that the Android community deserves, but not the one it needs right now…and so we’ll hunt him…because he can take it…because he’s not a hero…he’s a silent guardian, a watchful protector…
Used Launcher pro for ages and reluctantly stopped due to issues I was experiencing with ICS roms. I bought it and feel I easily had my money’s worth and can’t understand why people get so upset when support and development on an app they spent 2 or 3 dollars or pounds or euros on stops, although I would say it would be nice if Frederico acknowledged LP was abandoned and made it free in the market.
Reminds me of Dark Knight Rises. Do you think he’s coming back?
According to his forums he is moving from one country to another, but I think he has bailed on the android development thing. LPP stopped working correctly because google changed their API on accessing gmail and it caused LPP to crash, which is about when he completely gave up developing. It is all in his forums…
http://www.launcherpro.com/forum/index.php
Indie-developers ? (i can only relate that to a developer from India, but he was from Argentina :P)
Yes, I’m still alive and kicking. Sorry I haven’t been very active on the forums/Twitter lately, I have tons going on at the moment.
Hello! We all miss LauncherPro! It was the only reason I stuck with my crappy droid 2!
Who are you?
Don’t know you from Joe but it’s good to hear that you’re alive (and hopefully well).
Will you ever be returning to Android development or have you given up on it?
Hey Fede, good to know you’re around, and looking forward to whatever you build next. Cheers!
Yes, I’m still alive and kicking! Sorry I haven’t been very active in the forums/Twitter lately, I have tons going on at the moment.
Federico volvé, Android necesita de tu sabiduria criolla.
I heard he had a condo on his wrist and he was cashing out.
i know him…hes actually my instructor….
From what I’ve gathered, he is alive
and well. Although, to be fair, I’m certainly not omniscient or omnipresent.
It’s a shame that for whatever reason, LP was abandoned, as LP was my favorite
launcher for quite awhile. Long ago (in Android time), I really liked GDE. Mostly,
I liked the cube transition, actually, but GDE was abandoned. I know very little
to nothing about Carnales personally. I know a total rewrite was promised for a
long time, but never came to fruition, and as time went on, LP was getting
quite long in the tooth. After I gave up on LP, I used ADW EX Pro, then GO
Launcher EX, then, after giving it a “free trial run”, bought TSF
Shell (which I can honestly say was worth every penny of the ~$17, they really
keep up on it, add new features and widgets, etc., but that’s another matter),
then gave Nova, Apex, etc. a try.
Whenever I try out a new launcher, or a new
feature comes out for one of the launchers I am using, I often think of what LP
could’ve been, and where it would be today if it wasn’t abandoned. LP was
definitely one of the, if not the most popular alternate launcher out there.
I don’t know if it was a university project he
was doing, then graduated, found a job that kept him too busy, if he made
enough that he just called it quits (not likely), or if he simply got sick of
getting slammed with tons of emails asking why it doesn’t do or have this or
that and people whining because it didn’t cause unicorns to leap from the
screen, or if it was that Android went from a handful of devices to hundreds,
and he simply didn’t want to deal with the hassle of making sure it worked on
every device and every Android OS since its release.
Obviously, this is nothing but speculation on
my part, but it seems that aside from Carnales, and those who know him
personally, that’s all anyone has. I would like to know myself what happened to
him. Hopefully, he is in good health.
At this point, it is my thinking that LP is
abandonware that will fade into Android history like so many other launchers.
It would be great to see it come back with awesome transitions, options,
widgets, and eye-candy, but I’m not holding my breath.