Google Pixel phones might finally let you remove one of their most annoying features

You could soon be able to remove Google’s contentious At a Glance widget from your Pixel smartphone home screen.

For several members of the Tech Advisor team, you’d have to pry their Google Pixel 10 phones from their cold, dead hands. But even these Pixel converts would admit (indeed, grumble loudly) that there’s an annoyingly persistent flaw with the Pixel Home Screen layout.

It continues to be impossible to remove the At a Glance widget from the main Home Screen on a Pixel phone.

Google’s multi-functional widget might be extremely useful (I’m a fan, personally), but the fact that you can’t opt to replace it with something else (or indeed nothing) is deeply irritating.

And while we’re at it, why does it have to take up so much space?

Glancing blow

Thankfully, there’s evidence that Google is planning to change all this.

In the latest pre-release build of the Android OS, Android Authority has spotted a new “Show on home screen” toggle in the At a Glance settings.

The purpose of this seems pretty unambiguous. In some not-too-distant future version of Android, you’ll be able to remove the At a Glance widget from the Home Screen. It might well remain active on the lock screen, which is an irritation in itself, but this would be real progress.

The ability to remove this all-encompassing widget has been requested for years now, its permanent status seeming to run counter to Android’s customisable reputation. We could finally be set to see such requests fulfilled.