Improved Animation Coming to Pixel Launcher with Android 14 DP2
Google has been busy with updates this week. The March Feature Drop and the Quarterly Platform Release 3 (QPR3) for the Android 13 beta program have been released. While not many changes are expected to be available in the stable version, which will be released as the June Feature Drop, Google seems to be working on a better animation for the Pixel Launcher. This comes in the form of an improved long-press animation with a bounce effect.
As reported by the Google News Telegram channel, Google is currently developing a new design and animation for the Pixel Launcher popup panel. The popup panel appears when you long-press an icon on your home screen or in your app drawer. The new animation expands from the icon itself, bouncing back slightly when it reaches its final size. The same applies to any other pop-up menu in the launcher, whether you’re long-pressing an empty spot, or tapping an overflow menu.
The pop-up itself is also getting a slight tweak. Instead of having each item sit in its bubble, the new design will only have up to three bubbles stacked on top of each other, one for app settings, widgets, and other administrative options, and another for in-app shortcuts.
Currently, these changes are not active in either Android 14 or Android 13 QPR3, and it’s possible that Google is merging a few changes from Android 14 that aren’t intended to be shipped with the June Feature Drop. However, it is possible to update the Pixel Launcher independently from the system. If you’re interested in keeping up with the latest updates, you can learn how to install the Android 14 Developer Preview or Android 13 beta.
