Google is finally catching up to Apple and Samsung with this latest Android feature

If you’re tired of having to rearrange your home screen icons, folders, shortcuts, and widgets one by one on your Pixel, then you’ll be happy to learn that light has just been spotted at the end of the tunnel. As per a new APK teardown curtesy of Android Authority, it looks like Google is finally working on a dedicated home screen manager interface to call its own.

In particular, the folks over at Android Authority have uncovered evidence of an in-progress home screen organizational tool hidden deep within Android 17 Beta 3, which is a preview build of the OS currently available for testing purposes on compatible hardware.

Even in its rough initial state, this home screen manager offers a familiar set of options, including a birds-eye view of available pages, as well as the ability to delete entire pages with the tap of a button. Presumably, other functions like rearranging pages and setting the default home screen page are also in the pipeline, but it’s impossible to tell quite yet.

In typical Google fashion, there appears to also be a flair of unique ‘smart’ functionality roped into the feature. Namely, there’s a home screen creation tool that seems to autopopulate installed apps and widgets based on selected categories like Most used, Games, Health & Fitness, Productivity, Travel, and Social, with it surfacing various layout options to then pick from.

I’ve wanted a home screen manager for years

‘Stock’ Android is finally having its home screen moment in the sun

For as long as Android has been around, third-party manufacturers have been including their own proprietary skins over top of the basic ‘stock’ Android Open Source Project (AOSP) version of Google’s mobile operating system.

From the get-go, just about every third-party skin — including iconic and now-defunct ones like Samsung Touchwiz and HTC Sense — has shipped with home screen managers via a long-press or a pinch gesture, allowing for effortless adding, removing, and reorganizing of pages.

My very first smartphone was an HTC Wildfire S, and, despite its puny 3.2-inch display panel and its anemic processing grunt, I vividly remember its home screen manager as being fast, fluid, responsive, and convenient. Since then, it has always struck me as strange that such a basic feature has never been incorporated into Android proper, whether it be via AOSP or even the Pixel Launcher.

…it has always struck me as strange that such a basic feature has never been incorporated into Android proper.

Fast-forward to today, and even Apple’s iOS and iPadOS feature dedicated home screen managers, leaving Pixel users uniquely alone in the frustration of poking and prodding to customize pages on the fly.

With this in mind, I’m excited to see a proper home screen manager from Google finally be in the works. I quite like that the company is taking the opportunity to add its own unique auto-layout option into the mix, though I do hope all the essentials (like being able to designate any home screen as the default one) make their way into the eventual release of the feature.