Google maybe removing outdated At a Glance widget on Pixel phones

The At a Look Widget on Google Pixel telephones has been the bane of my existence for too lengthy. It’s not that it’s horrible, however up to now, there was no approach to take away it, and there appear to be few causes to make use of it in any respect.

Android Authority found that within the newest Canary (beta) construct of Google’s Pixel launcher, there’s a brand new toggle within the At A Look settings menu that claims, “Present on house display screen,” suggesting you’ll lastly have the ability to disable the persistent widget. The publication says up to now, the swap doesn’t even work, however hopefully, you’ll lastly have the ability to disable it by the top of 2025.

At a Look could possibly be superior, however in observe, it largely simply exhibits the date and the climate, which makes it extremely boring. Google even tried to treatment this a couple of years in the past when it launched Materials You alongside an entire slate of enjoyable and thrilling widget designs. Nonetheless, making an attempt to make use of them in your principal homescreen was usually blocked by At a Look, and infrequently confirmed the identical data, making the enjoyable widgets sadly redundant. You’d suppose {that a} sensible widget like At a Look would have the ability to adapt to the opposite widgets in your display screen, however it could actually’t, so the knowledge overlap is often unavoidable.

It truthfully showcases a number of Google’s failings in a single small widget. It’s an outdated design that almost all would suppose the corporate has forgotten about. It hasn’t, since Google has been quietly including extra capabilities to it through the years. Nonetheless, on the finish of the day, not having the choice to disable it and change it with one other widget undermines Google’s human-centric and customizable design ethos.

The opposite factor that drives me nuts about it’s that it’ll adapt to show new data past the date and climate, however then it can cover that new data behind a swipe to a semi-hidden second web page. I’d argue that if it’s acquired one thing new to say, it ought to present it straight away. The date and climate are there 90 per cent of the time, so anybody who has checked out their cellphone as soon as has probably seen them up to now hour. Please present me the opposite data extra usually!!! In the event you’re not, adapting the widget every time I look at my cellphone, it feels fairly pointless.

To make issues much more irritating, it might additionally merely show one thing like a calendar occasion on that hidden second web page, which often seems as a notification or another type of alert, so by the point I see it on At a Look, I’ve already seen it on my lockscreen or in my notification shade. The identical goes for excessive climate alerts.

The pink settings are for the previous At a Look and the white ones are for the brand new design.

Material You was introduced in 2021, and a newly designed At a Glance widget followed within the years after. It seems nice and completely matches the type of contemporary Pixel telephones. Nonetheless, I’d hazard a guess that no Pixel house owners are literally utilizing it, since they might then should take care of two At a Look widgets on their house display screen. Nonetheless, to spherical all of it out in a means that makes nearly no sense, the better-looking At a Look widget lacks as many capabilities as the unique text-based one, nevertheless it does appear to indicate alerts for issues like your calendar extra successfully. On the finish of the day, it simply appears wild to me that Google has a greater model of this widget, however you’ll be able to’t use it.

General, it highlights how Google’s consideration to element can falter over time, as inside groups usually are inclined to overlook their very own initiatives. Like, I critically do not know how the second At a Look widget acquired permitted and shipped, understanding that it could actually’t change the common model with out utilizing a third-party launcher. Hopefully, Google is lastly on observe to treatment this since people have only been complaining about it since 2019.

Supply: Android Authority