If the search bar at the bottom of the Pixel Launcher always looks a little different, it’s because Google made things a little taller.
The pill-shaped search bar is now a few pixels taller. This change also applies to the Search home screen widget of the Google app.
A slightly more obvious change is how Google increased the size of the Lens, voice search, and AI mode (or whatever shortcut you set) icons. It makes everything look a little more proportionate.
Old and new
By extension, Google dropped the Material 3 Expressive redesign of the Pixel Launcher search bar last December. Google application is intentional replaced the single device search giving more preference to AI mode after starting the search.
In addition to the fact that the unified search is now only available when you open the app drawer, Google reverting to the previous Search bar design didn’t look very modern. Today’s height adjustment does a little to help fix this, but unit tracking is sorely missed.
Search bar tweaks have been rolled out Version 17.32 of the Google app, which is now widely available in the stable channel. This is not an Android 17 change with the screenshots above from Android 16.
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