TL;DR After testing it in Android 16 QPR3 Beta 1, Android 17 Beta 1 now appears to let all users remove the At a Glance home screen widget.
You’ll still see At a Glance on the lock screen, and you gain more space on your home screen for other widgets.
Android 17 Beta 1 also includes minor visual changes to the volume and brightness bars.
After a delayed rollout earlier this week, Google has officially launched Android 17 Beta 1 (strangely, on a Friday afternoon with extremely little fanfare). We’re digging through the update to see what’s new, and while there isn’t too much in this initial build of Android 17, there are a few visual tweaks worth noting.
The first, and most notable, is the ability to hide the At a Glance widget on your home screen. This is something Google tested with a select group of users in Android 16 QPR3 Beta 1, but it appears to be widely available in Android 17 Beta 1.
To hide At a Glance, press and hold on the widget, tap Settings, and tap the new toggle next to “Show on home screen.” Toggling this off will remove At a Glance from the top-left corner of your first home screen, though you will still see it on the lock screen. You can also use the newly freed-up home screen space for app icons, other widgets, or whatever else you want to do with it.
This is something I’ve wanted for years, so seeing it in Android 17 is fantastic.
Android 17 Android 16
The other UI changes are much less impactful, though still worth mentioning. The volume bar now features a volume slider icon at the bottom, replacing the three-dot icon in Android 16. Tapping it still opens the main volume page, and the new icon is much more representative of it.
Android 17 Android 16
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