If you’ve ever stared at your Pixel home screen and wished you could squeeze in just one more row of apps, Google has good news: in the latest Android 16 QPR1 beta, the At a Glance widget has been slimmed down, giving you extra real estate for icons and widgets. Upon updating, Pixel owners are greeted by a friendly pop-up:

• Enjoy more space for apps
• Good news! Your home screen has a new layout, which means there’s space for more apps & widgets

This tweak isn’t just aesthetic—by compressing the dead space between rows and reducing the height of the At a Glance bar, Google has managed to add a whole extra line of apps to the grid, making for a denser, more efficient layout without sacrificing glanceable information.

Since its debut in 2018, At a Glance has been a fixture of Pixel launchers, surfacing calendar events, commute times, weather alerts, and flight updates right on your home screen. Unlike other Android skins that let you remove or relocate widgets at will, Pixel’s home screen has always forced you to live with two mandatory elements: the Google search bar docked at the bottom and At a Glance at the top. Over the years, Pixel enthusiasts have petitioned for the option to disable At a Glance entirely, arguing that it eats into valuable screen space and duplicates functionality found in notification shades or third-party launchers. Google’s compromise so far has been none; the widget remained stubbornly unmovable—until now.

This change arrives alongside Google’s new Material 3 Expressive design language, a colorful, bouncy revamp of Android’s visual identity unveiled at I/O 2025. Material 3 Expressive builds on the groundwork of Material You—Android’s makeover introduced in version 12—by adding springy animations, dynamic color theming across Google apps, and a more playful, youth-oriented aesthetic.

Beyond just looks, Material 3 Expressive also introduces functional enhancements such as Live Updates (Android’s answer to Apple’s Live Activities), new quick-settings tile resizing options, and background blur effects in the Quick Settings panel. It’s within this broader design sweep that At a Glance got its reduction treatment, proving that even minor UI elements can get a fresh coat of polish.