Here are some of the new features of Pixel Launcher in Android 15

The applications that power your phone’s home screen are called launchers, and due to the customizability of Android, there are many Android home screen launchers to choose from. Most people stick to the default home screen launcher, which for Google Pixel phones is called Pixel Launcher. Pixel Launcher may not be as customizable as Nova Launcher, but it continues to add new features with every Android version. The upcoming Android 15 update is no different, as the new version is gearing up to tweak several aspects of the app launch experience.

First, Google is gearing up to tweak the animation that plays when you swipe up on an app to return to the home screen. The new animation is faster and more flexible, and better highlights the wallpaper zoom effect. The following screen recording compares the swipe to home animation in Android 14 and Android 15 Beta 1.

Next up, Pixel Launcher is gearing up to revamp its widget recommendations in Android 15. Currently, when you open the widget picker in the Pixel Launcher, a seemingly random widget appears at the top of the page. There’s no real explanation for why the Pixel Launcher chooses to recommend specific widgets, but luckily with the new recommendation system, you’ll have more recommendations to choose from. Additionally, it is recommended to categorize by type, making it easier for you to find widgets that suit your home screen needs.

In my testing, I found three recommended categories: Essentials, Social, and Entertainment. However, a quick look at the Pixel Launcher’s code reveals five other possible categories, including Health & Fitness, News & Magazines, Recommended for You, Your Relaxation Zone, and Weather. Interestingly, a few widgets from third-party apps were recommended to me, suggesting that the Pixel Launcher may take some algorithmic approach to its recommendations rather than just using a hard-coded list.

Another widget-related improvement in Android 15 is the addition of a “+ Add” button to the Pixel Launcher’s widget picker. Using this button makes it easier to add widgets to your home screen, since you no longer have to press and then drag the widget. Instead, you just tap “+ Add” and Pixel Launcher automatically adds the widget of your choice to an empty spot on your home screen.

Finally, the Pixel Launcher in Android 15 is also set to improve the recent screen UI. If you didn’t know, the Recents screen is actually powered by a module called QuickStep in the System Launcher app. The recents screen in Android 14 consists of a horizontal carousel of recently opened apps. This hasn’t changed in Android 15, but what has changed is the method of accessing the menu, where the buttons for opening the app information page, entering split-screen mode, and pausing the app are located.

In Android 14, this menu can be accessed by long-pressing the app icon in the recent screen. This may not be obvious to some users, causing them to miss these shortcuts entirely. Android 15 may fix this by adding a little pill at the top of each app in the recent screen. The pill contains the application’s icon, name, and a drop-down arrow to open the aforementioned menu. This change will hopefully make these buttons more discoverable.

All of the changes to the Pixel Launcher that I documented in this article haven’t taken effect in Android 15 beta 1 yet. In order to display them I have to manually enable some flags. Therefore, one or more of these changes may not be released in the stable version of Android 15 released later this year. However, these subtle changes improve the app launch experience, so I don’t understand why they wouldn’t be rolled out. Since the Pixel Launcher is only available on Google’s own Pixel devices, it’s unclear how many of these changes will appear in the stock launcher in AOSP, so it remains to be seen whether other OEMs’ devices will get these changes in their products. Corresponding Android 15 update.