A server-side update rolling out to many users of the Google app today adds an interesting new Notifications page to settings. At the moment, the only option is to turn on notifications for Google’s homepage doodles, but nevertheless is quite notable for how high-level it is.
On the majority of Android devices, the Notifications page is now the very first item at the top of Settings, ranking over Search and Home screen. Meanwhile, the setting is listed under Google Assistant on the Pixel.
A toggle to turn on notifications for “New Doodle games, videos, and interactive experiences” is currently the only setting. By default, it set to off and requires enabling on each device. With doodles often marking both major events and others that are less well known, Google might have a way to highlight important things that would otherwise miss people’s attentions.
Despite the high level status of the new pane, notifications for Feed — previously Google Now — cards still remain in the “Your feed” page. This inconsistency could be confusing for new users as the Feed frequently sends notifications for drastic temperature and weather changes, sport scores, major news alerts, and more that direct users back to the Google app.
The new Notification settings page is currently being rolled out server-side to recent versions of the Google app. It does not appear to be limited to the current beta version (6.10).
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