Android 13 QPR3 is testing a splashy new popup for the Pixel Launcher

Google is on an update journey this week. The company released both the March Feature Drop and the next Android 13 beta program, Quarterly Platform Release 3 (or QPR3 for short). While we don’t expect too many changes to become available once this new beta becomes stable as the June Feature Drop later this year, it looks like Google is working on a nice animation overhaul for the Pixel Launcher in the form of a bouncy long press animation.

As discovered by the Google News Telegram channel, Google is working on a new design and animation for the Pixel Launcher popup panel. This is the menu that appears when you long press an icon on your home screen or in your app drawer. Work on this has already been seen in Android 14’s second Developer Preview, but we hadn’t seen the new animation that comes with it. Instead of the menu expanding up or down in a straight line when tapped, the new animation expands more naturally from the icon itself, only to bounce back slightly when it reaches its final size. This is the case for all pop-up menus in the launcher, whether you long-press an empty spot or tap an overflow menu. Google News’ video below shows what it looks like.

The popup window itself is also slightly adjusted. Instead of letting each list item sit in its own bubble, similar to how notifications are displayed, the new design will only consist of up to three bubbles stacked on top of each other: One for app settings, widgets and other administrative options, another for shortcuts in the app, and we assume there will be another for notifications (we haven’t seen this one yet).

The changes are not enabled by default in either Android 14 or Android 13 QPR3. It’s entirely possible that Google is merging a few changes from Android 14 here that were never intended to ship with the June Feature Drop. However, since Pixel Launcher is technically an app that can be updated independently of the system, it’s not completely impossible, though unlikely.

If you’d like to live on the soft edge for a chance to get changes like these sooner, learn how to install Android 14 Developer Preview or Android 13 beta.