This is why I stick with the default Pixel Launcher

Every year when I set up my new Pixel phone, I have a brief moment of doubt about sticking with the default Pixel Launcher. I think about all the great Android launchers I’ve tried in the past, all the interesting approaches to finding and interacting with my apps and widgets, and then I accept my fate and stick with the default option, again and again.

It’s not that I think the Pixel Launcher is perfect or that the other options don’t have excellent features I envy. Quite the contrary. But there’s something comforting in Google’s approach, so here’s why I stick with it despite knowing there are better options out there.

In the early 2010s, one of my favorite Android features was its infinite potential for customization. I was switching between Apex, ADW, and Nova Launcher back then, finding cool icon themes, building custom weather, time, music, and calendar widgets, and looking for new wallpapers and ideas every few days to switch around. The screenshots you see above are just a small sample of what I tried during that phase.

It was an incredibly fun and creative period of my life, where I had limited responsibilities and work. I could lose myself in a new setup for hours or days and optimize it to exactly how I wanted it to be. Then I’d use it for a couple of days, take a screenshot, file it away (here’s a Google Photos album of all of them), and try to come up with a new setup to replace it. All these long customization sessions were why I fell in love with Android in the first place.

There’s a reason why all of my screenshots stop around the fall of 2013, though. It’s when I started testing Aviate Launcher (seen above), which promised to bring my apps to me contextually, when and where I needed them. 12 years later, this is still not a reality, but in 2013, the promise was very intriguing. Aviate didn’t have a lot of customization options, but it made me realize I didn’t need them. This was also a time in my life when my work and responsibilities were growing, and when I also stopped messing with custom ROMs. Both factors converged into making me stick with a more “dull” home screen setup. They changed how I saw my Android phone and launcher, and made me appreciate the ease of access to my apps versus having a pretty wallpaper with busy widgets and only a few icons.

Once I prioritized functionality over design, there was no switching back. By the time Aviate launched officially as the Yahoo Launcher in 2014, I was already embracing my boring Android setups. I didn’t like the Yahoo tie-in, so I went back to Nova Launcher, though this time, I built the most functional home screen. Five icons in the dock, a few folders above them, and a weather or search widget on top. When I bought my Pixel 2 XL in 2017, I didn’t see a reason to use Nova Launcher anymore since I could have the exact same setup on the default Android launcher.

Believe it ot not, this is still basically the same home screen setup I use in 2025. I’m a boring, uncreative person now who cares for functionality and efficiency and doesn’t like messing with things that work.

Any time we talk about features Google should bring to the Pixel Launcher, the options to remove the Google Search bar and At a Glance widget are the top requests anyone has. And sure, this may be your case, but for me, these are the two features I appreciate the most about my phone.

Having a quick way to start any random search or open Google Lens to look up something or translate a restaurant menu is invaluable in my everyday life. Whether I’m watching football with my husband and wondering how old Woltemade is or how tall Strand Larsen is, questioning the exact meaning of “modicum” in English, converting the price of a gadget from dollars to euros, ordering food at a restaurant in Athens, or trying to read a parking sign in Oostende, the Google Search bar is the easiest way I can answer all of these questions.

At a Glance, on the other hand, fades into the background most of the time with nothing but the weather, but that’s all I really need most of the time. I love that it shows me calendar events (though I’d love to customize how early they show up and how long they stay), details about my upcoming flights, alarms, or ongoing timers, and warns me when I leave my flashlight on. I just wish the commute, time to leave, cross-device timers, and package and order delivery notices were consistent or predictable. They just never seem to work all that well for me. I’m also excited for when sports scores will finally roll to At a Glance. This will let me ditch the floating scores that I always end up dismissing by mistake.

Still, despite the limitations, At a Glance has become an integral part of my Pixel experience. I wish it could do more, but I love the few things it brings in such a small footprint on my home screen. Sure, I could replace it with a weather widget, a calendar widget, and a bunch of other widgets, but they’d take more space and show up even when nothing important is happening. Half of the time, I don’t care about the weather or have a busy calendar, to be honest.

I know that Google has made these widgets accessible on other launchers, but every time I try them there, they don’t work just as well or feel the same. I actually prefer the Search bar at the bottom and the At a Glance widget locked to the top, as Google intended. Plus, At a Glance’s standalone widget doesn’t have all features, either.

Over the last decade, I’ve dabbled with other launchers every now and then. Several week-long experiments with Nova, Lawnchair, Action, Smart, and I even went as far as testing a completely blank home screen on Niagara to see how it affected my phone use, but after all was said and done, I found myself back on the Pixel Launcher. It’s the smoothest and most reliable launcher I’ve used on my Pixel phones, and each time I came back to it, it felt like I was home.

Even though I still make the mistake of thinking I could do more with third-party launchers’ stacked widgets, gestures to open apps or folders, extra grid icon options, and custom folder actions, I don’t use any of that after I set it up. I just tap to open apps and tap to open folders. Even if a widget is on my home screen, I’ll often forget to look at it and open the full app instead. At this point, I should just accept that this is how my brain now works and not fight it anymore. Maybe Google brainwashed me into thinking this basic functionality is all I need, but here we are. So, why bother looking for a third-party launcher when what I need is in the default one?

My favorite setup is what you see above, on the Pixel 10 Pro on the left. I have five dock icons for the Phone app, WhatsApp, Camera, Chrome, and Spotify. On top of it are five app folders that allow me to get to anything I’ve installed on my phone. I don’t even need to open the app drawer, because everything is there on the home screen. The first folder is a mix of work apps, banking, travel, and other serious apps; the second is all Google apps; the third is mostly utilities; the fourth is all media and fun; and the last one is smart home and connected accessories.

Sometimes, I get crazy and add a second home screen to test a new widget or a few apps, but that’s the extent of it. Apps, folders, At a Glance, the Google Search bar — a good ol’ boring, reliable setup that never fails and always gets me to the app I need in one tap, two taps, or two taps and one swipe, max. That’s the life.