- An Android 17 beta hints that you might soon be able to remove the search bar on Pixel home screens
- This might be part of the finished version of Android 17, but it is not yet available even in beta
- The May Pixel update is also rolling out now, complete with various bug fixes
We already know a lot of what Android 17 is likely to offer, but another big change has just leaked: it looks like Google may finally let you hide the home screen search bar on Pixel phones.
This search bar is a convenient way to do a web search on Google without having to open the browser first, but it also takes up a lot of screen space, so if you don’t do a lot of searches, prefer a different search engine, or just like to open the browser, you’d understandably want this feature gone.
It’s actually surprising that it’s taken this long for Google to enable a toggle for the search bar, as it seems like it should be optional. But based on some digging Android Authority has done into Android 17 beta code, a switch could be coming soon, as strings of code mention things like ‘customize search bar’, ‘search bar settings’ and ‘show search bar at the bottom of your home screen’.
These references suggest that it is likely that you will be able to choose whether to show the search bar in Android 17, although the site was not able to enable this feature in the current beta. Still, the fact that there is code pointing to this suggests that it might be ready in time for Android 17’s finished version, and we might even get a look at this during the next Android Show on May 12.
To beat the bugs
But while that feature might not launch for a while, Google is now rolling out a minor update to Pixel phones. This is May’s Pixel update, and it’s coming to all models from the Google Pixel 7a and Pixel Tablet onwards.
There aren’t any new features here, but there are various bug fixes, including fixes for slow wireless charging speeds when the battery level is between 75% and 80%, and an issue where the camera app freezes while recording video and adjusting the zoom level.
There are also fixes for issues that caused a flickering white dot to appear at the top of the screen, the screen to appear blurry or frozen, and the keyboard to appear frozen or misplaced in certain apps.
These sound like pretty annoying problems that are definitely worth fixing. The update has already started rolling out to select Pixel phones, but Google notes that it will roll out over the next few weeks in phases, depending on your carrier and device. So you might not have it yet.
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