Joe Maring / Android Authority
Thanks to a recent APK teardown, we discovered that Google’s At a Glance feature on Pixel phones is getting a major overhaul. What we know as At a Glance will be rebranded as “Gemini Space,” and with that, Google is also adding more contextual cards to the longstanding widget — including sports scores, birthday reminders, finance updates, and more.
From what we’ve seen, Gemini Space aims to show a lot more contextual info than At a Glance currently does, bringing it more in line with something like Samsung’s Now Brief/Now Bar experiences. Assuming Google can make Gemini Space’s content more helpful and personalized than Now Brief, that’s not a bad pitch.
However, with this being the biggest At a Glance refresh we’ve ever seen, I hope Google also uses this as an opportunity to fix something that’s been a problem for years.
Are you looking forward to Gemini Space? 22 votes Yes, it already looks great! 36 % Yes, but only if Google adds more customization options. 41 % No, it doesn't seem very impressive. 23 % Other (let us know in the comments). 0 %
The main thing I want Gemini Space to fix
Aamir Siddiqui / Android Authority
Ever since Google added At a Glance to Pixel home screens in 2017 with the Pixel 2, the widget has been extremely rigid by design.
Google has always given us control over what content we want to see in At a Glance, but we’ve never been able to change the widget’s appearance or placement. You can’t move At a Glance to the middle of your phone or place it further down on the home screen. You can’t make the widget larger or smaller, and you certainly can’t get rid of At a Glance if you don’t want to see it. You’re simply stuck with the widget at the top left of your Pixel home screen, and you just have to accept its placement there.
Although there’s currently no indication that Gemini Space will add such customization options, I hope Google is using this big overhaul as an excuse to finally address this. If Google is adding so many new cards and going as far as to rebrand At a Glance to Gemini Space, it suggests that the company sees Gemini Space as a significant evolution of the old At a Glance feature. If that’s the case, why not fix a pain point that Pixel users regularly complain about?
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