Google released Android 17 Beta 3 yesterday with a handful of interesting additions, but as is often the case, the coolest features are the ones typically hidden just below the surface — or, in this case, behind some secret flags. The company appears to be working on a new way for Pixel users to automatically fill their home screen with suggested apps, widgets, and more, and it could completely change how you layout your smartphone’s launcher.
This new tool, discovered by Android Authority, appears to be relatively early in development, with unfinished elements and placeholders in lieu of actual application options, which seems to imply it won’t be ready for Android 17’s final build. Still, even in this rough state, it looks to be a massive addition to the Pixel Launcher. Effectively, this tool would allow Pixel users to create a new home screen from various app categories. Rather than the typical process of dragging apps one by one from your app drawer out to the home screen, Google would automatically populate this new page with your chosen category.
Although this early UI doesn’t actually show applications (or its layout previews, for that matter), you can see how the idea would come together. Google would use Play Store categories to determine what applications and widgets would be added to this new page, and you could select from a pre-determined amount of layouts before locking in your choice. These app categories include Games, Health & Fitness, Productivity, Travel, and Social, along with a “Most Used” option at the top of the listing. There’s also space for at least one more category to be added in the future.
Assuming Google finishes building out this tool, it’ll also bring a feature to Pixel phones that’s been missing for ages: the ability to view all home screen pages on a single grid, complete with quick options for rearranging and deleting. It’s a feature that I remember using all the way back on HTC devices running its Sense UI many, many years ago, and although that makes Google pretty significantly late to the party, as the saying goes, better late than never.
Considering Android 17 Beta 3 is the first to reach Google’s stability milestone, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this year’s OS upgrade launch without this feature ready to go. That said, it wouldn’t surprise me if this rolled out alongside the Pixel 11 series later this year — almost certainly after the initial launch of Android 17 — before potentially arriving on older hardware as part of Android 17’s first QPR upgrade. But with something this early in development, your guess is as good as ours.
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