Android 17 appears to be working on adding a new option for “Number” to notification badges. This is a feature almost all other modern day phones have, but Google has been slow to add it to Pixel phones.
The new Android 17 QPR3 Beta 2 has hidden changes that Google is working on, like with almost every release. The folks who find it fun to dig into that stuff are finding potentially useful changes that Pixel phones probably should have had ages ago.
Numbers as notification badges in Android 17 on Pixel phones
When your Pixel phone receives a notification, it lives within your status bar as a notification icon, as a notification within the Quick Settings pulldown that you can interact with, and also as a notification badge that attaches to icons on your home screen.
Most modern phones allow that notification badge to present itself in a couple of ways. A dot is pretty standard, but there is typically a choice to have that dot turn into a number. The idea here is that you might want to get more information from your badge, like to show that you have 4 Gmail notifications or 7 text message notifications, rather than just a dot. On an iPhone, it will almost always say 752 unread Mail notifications.
Below, you can see how notification badges look on a Pixel 11 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro, and Galaxy Z Fold 8. You’ll notice that the Pixel 11 Pro is the only one showing a simple dot rather than a number.
Buried within the newest Android 17 QPR3 Beta 2, there is apparently an in-the-works menu change for “Notification badges” on the Pixel phone. Currently, if you head into your Pixel phone’s Notifications settings area, there is a toggle at the very bottom that says, “Notification dot on app icon.” The hidden menu turns this into a tappable area that opens a new Notification Badges area with options for Number, Dot, or None.
Below, we’ve included the current Pixel style along with what you can already find on Samsung phones.
Is this a major feature introduction? Well, no, not really. However, this most definitely seems like a feature or setting that Google should have given us 7 years ago. We’ll take it now, of course, but man, this just shows you how slow Google can be to add features to its Pixel phones that the industry has had for years.
