Poll: Have you removed 'At a Glance' widget in Android 17 Beta 1?

Android 17 Beta 1 has been out for over a week, and alongside its various under-the-hood refinements, it brings one highly anticipated UI tweak: the ability to finally remove the At a Glance widget from the Pixel home screen.

For years, this persistent widget has been a defining (and mandatory) feature of the Pixel Launcher. Keeping the feature has plenty of perks. At a Glance is designed to serve up proactive, context-aware information like pushing flight details, calendar events, severe weather alerts, package deliveries, and even quick QR code access right to your home screen. For many, this predictive intelligence is exactly why they buy a Pixel.

However, a vocal segment of the community has long campaigned for the ability to disable it. The primary grievances, frequently detailed across Reddit, revolve around screen real estate and aesthetics. Users argue that the unmovable widget permanently monopolizes the valuable top row of the primary home screen, creating visual asymmetry with secondary pages. Furthermore, it lacks basic customization—users cannot resize it, move it to the bottom, or alter its visual footprint.

The forced placement was enough to drive many away from the default launcher entirely. As one long-time Pixel 7 Pro user celebrated online: “Android 17 lets us remove that ridiculous widget from the home screen 🥳 Now I’ll finally go back to using the native Pixel launcher. The annoying widget was the only reason I’ve been using a 3rd party launcher since buying my phone.”

To clear the widget, beta users simply long-press At a Glance, hit Settings, and toggle off Show on home screen. This cleverly frees up your app grid while keeping the predictive data alive on your lock screen. That said, a few beta testers have reported that they still haven’t received the toggle, pointing to a staggered rollout or server-side flag.

Notably, this isn’t the first time we’re seeing the ability to hide the At a Glance widget show up in an Android build. We first reported about this back in 2023 after the feature was spotted in Android 14 QPR2 Beta 1. But in classic beta style, it vanished in future builds. It then resurfaced late last year in an Android 16 Canary build, and finally, Android 17 Beta 1 brings it to the masses.

Now that Google is giving users control over their top row, we want to know what you did with it.

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