Dominic Preston is a news editor with over a decade’s experience in journalism. He previously worked at Android Police and Tech Advisor.
Google’s new Material 3 Expressive design language includes a welcome surprise for Pixel owners: the mandatory At a Glance home screen widget has shrunk, leaving space for an extra row of apps.
The new look is included in the latest version of the Android 16 beta. Upon installation, Pixel owners are greeted with a pop-up message on the home screen:
Enjoy more space for apps
Good news! Your home screen has a new layout, which means there’s space for more apps & widgets
The new design both shrinks the At a Glance widget and removes some of the dead space between the other rows, compressing the entire screen. It leaves room for a full extra row of apps below the redesigned widget.
1/2This is my Pixel 9A home screen before the update… Screenshot: The Verge / Android
The bad news is that Google still won’t let you turn off the widget, which is a mandatory part of the Pixel home screen, just like the Google search bar at the bottom. Making it smaller will at least go some way to appeasing Pixel owners who’ve long hoped for the same home screen flexibility as other Android phones.
Material 3 Expressive is a colorful, bouncy new aesthetic for Android that Google unveiled last week. It was made available in the new Android 16 beta yesterday, and should roll out widely later this year, after the OS update launches in full next month.
Installer
A weekly newsletter by David Pierce designed to tell you everything you need to download, watch, read, listen to, and explore that fits in The Verge’s universe.
English (US) ·