Third-party launchers no longer suck on Pixels thanks to latest update

Rita El Khoury / Android Authority TL;DR Google has taken a massive step towards fixing the animation issues that have plagued third-party launchers on Pixel phones for years. The fixes are currently rolling out as part of the March 2025 update. In our tests, animations are now far smoother on Niagara and Nova Launcher, however, some issues remain. Third-party launchers have never felt smooth on Google’s Pixel hardware. Whether by design or due to technical issues, there always seems to be a massive animation quality gulf between them and Google’s own Pixel Launcher. However, with the March 2025 update, the company is finally addressing this issue with third-party launcher transitions. As detailed in the update changelog, the company has issued two notable fixes: Fix for issues with switching between apps when using third-party launchers in certain conditions. General improvements for performance and stability in certain UI transitions and animations. Out of curiosity, I compared ... Read full article.