A video of the launcher was taken by 9to5Google, and if you’ve used the previous Pixel launcher, you’ll notice a few major changes. For example, the “G” tab on the left-hand side is no longer there — instead, the search bar has been moved front and center at the bottom of the main home screen.
It makes sense that Google would want to make search a little more prominent. While it was already very accessible, it did require a swipe to get to. Now, you can simply tap on the search bar and start searching. Hopefully, users will be able to move it around on the home screen, as many people prefer having apps on the bottom rather than on the top.
In the demo, it seems as though the top row of the home screen is used for the date, which is centered and easy to see. In the previous Pixel launcher, the weather was also present there — and hopefully the weather aspect will come back, as it can be pretty helpful.
It will be interesting to see if the launcher changes at all over the next few months before the Google Pixel 2 is released, or if we’re now looking at a final version of it.
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