First world problem (but a potentially serious one if you're unlucky)

I've used the Smart Launcher app on my phones for perhaps 5 (or more?) years now, and I've been very happy with it.   I've paid for the pro version too, and although it's had the occasional hiccup,  it's been pretty smooth sailing, and I like its features.

This morning, it had a very big problem.  It insisted that the version I was using had to be updated, and this was the first screen on my phone - the Google Play update page for the app - but it wouldn't update.  Nor would it let me return to the home page, meaning the phone couldn't be used for anything.

I could get to the phone settings and did work out soon enough how to revert to the phone's inbuilt launcher, and of course did that.  But as many people on Reddit (which the fastest source of confirmation that there was a problem) pointed out, there would be many people out there (typically, parents or older folk whose kids had set up their phone with the app for them) who would not know how to go back to the phone's default launcher so as to be able to get to the home page again.   Hence, they would have an inoperative phone due to massive error in a Smart Launcher update. 

The company has acknowledged the error and said it should be fixed within hours.  As many on Reddit have noted, this could be a serious legal problem for the company if a user wanted to make an emergency or critical call on their phone, but was prevented by not being able to get to the home page.  (It's been a few hours now - I should go check if it has been fixed.  Wait - no it hasn't.  It's now been 3 hours since I discovered the problem; I don't know at what time it started overnight.)

Like many others (again, Reddit comments are the source of information), I also tried uninstalling the launcher and re-installing, but it didn't work.   This also likely means I have to set up the launcher to my preferred setting again once it again becomes useable.

I'm sure lots of users will consider dumping the app because of this.  Whoever caused the problem will likely be out of a job, I suspect.