Google’s At a Glance widget is a staple feature on Pixel phones, giving you quick access to upcoming appointments, weather alerts, flight info, and more, available on your home and lock screen as well as the always-on display. An older version of it is also available on other phones, though it offers less information and looks more dated, more in line with the design Google first introduced it in. We already know that the company has a redesign in the works, but now, we’re seeing it in action for the first time.
As initially covered by Google News Telegram channel creator @Nail_Sadykov on Twitter (or X, if you will), the new widget looks different from both the preceding one and the one you can find on Pixel phones. The current date and upcoming calendar events and other At a Glance notifications will show up in a pill-shaped form, with the weather displayed in a Material You-styled gear-like structure.
While we previously only saw the new widget in the widget picker, app tinkerer @AssembleDebug managed to activate it and showcase it on an actual home screen. They demonstrate how the widget offers three different styles that you can select using a three-dot menu between the calendar and the weather: solid, transparent, and outline. The widget seemingly also changes colors based on the background, like other Material You widgets, and it switches between dark and light background colors according to your system theme.
Compared to the At a Glance widget on Pixel phones, it seems to take up just a little more space all while displaying less information. Rather than show how many minutes there are left until an event starts, it only gives you the start time itself, taking up two lines when the Pixel widget only needs one. The font is also considerably smaller. Either way, it’s still a much more modern look, with the old At a Glance widget on third-party phones seriously starting to look dated. It’s particularly neat that you can now customize it with three different styles.
As with any feature still under construction, it’s unclear when Google will launch it. Given that the widget is already fully functional for @AssembleDebug, it’s likely that the release isn’t too far out.
Thanks: Mishaal
