You told us: Readers share their favorite Android 17 Beta 1 feature

Last month, Google delivered our very first real taste of Android 17, with the release of Beta 1. Development is moving forward at a solid pace, and in the weeks since we’ve already gotten our hands on Android 17 Beta 2. But before that one even landed, we reached out to you Android testers living on the bleeding edge to get your first impressions: What do you already like best about Android 17 Beta 1?

A whole lot of you Pixel users were interested in Google’s beta, and we heard back from over 2,500 testers with their impressions of Android 17 Beta 1. While there were a whole lot of changes we could have mentioned, we tried to keep things simple with just a couple main options — and based on the response we got, that was absolutely the right approach.

With just under half of you voting for it, the ability to finally remove At a Glance from your Pixel’s home screen is our clear winner, demanding more than double the support of our runner up, Search bar customization.

Looking through the comments, we find some of the changes that ended up in that “something else” category, but there doesn’t seem to be any one clear favorite. Reader rythemarora080 points out the addition of a vibration cue when a phone call connects — a nice tweak for dealing with friends who take forever to pick up.

Others seem to have their hopes all resting on changes that haven’t even popped up in any user-facing way yet in Beta 1 — like that upcoming ability to selectively lock apps. But mostly, those of you who stopped to comment just complained about how these all felt more like launcher changes than anything more substantive.

If you’ve got a Pixel phone and are interested in trying out this software for yourself, check out our Android 17 Beta install guide for everything you’ll need to know.