Everything New in Android 17 Beta

Android 17 Beta is officially live and we’ve got it up and running on a Pixel 10 Pro. You could have it on your device as well, since this is a beta build out of the gate, thanks to Google skipping the developer preview builds for this new version of Android.

After a short mix-up on the launch, Google pushed out the Android 17 Beta 1 today to every Pixel device from the Pixel 6 up through the Pixel 10 series. If you own one of these devices, you can sign-up to receive the update to Android 17 Beta 1 through the Android Beta Program (here). Should you? Well, this is a beta, so you can expect bugs here and there. However, this should be much more stable than a developer preview and is probably safe enough to put on your device. Should you run into issues, you can always exit the beta program and start clean.

Time to dive in and find fun new toys to play with.

Everything new in Android 17 Beta

Android 17 is indeed “CinnamonBun”

Not that we didn’t believe the codename for Android 17 was “CinnamonBun,” but it’s now official. In this first Android 17 Beta 1 update, we can see it right here in the notification shade. Now I’m hungry.

Pixel Launcher search bar can now be customized further

This seems new to me – the Pixel Launcher’s Google Search bar can now be long-pressed and then customized. The options for customization, which used to only change a widget that was added to home screens, now actually changes the pinned search bar in the Pixel Launcher.

Previously, at least on my Pixel 10 Pro XL running Android 16, you simply couldn’t long-press on it. However, you can customize a search bar in settings that look like this, but they then add an extra Search widget rather than update the pinned bar.

It’s tough to know if this is a Pixel Launcher update or something to do with Android 17.

Updating this post…but there might not be anything else new. We’ll report back if we find anything. Telling you about icon changes isn’t worth anyone’s time.