The Nexus 5’s “exclusive” launcher suspiciously receives support for other devices

Google’s words and actions regarding Google Home don’t quite line up…

Ron Amadeo – Nov 14, 2013 3:13 pm | 53

The Nexus 5 comes with a fancy new launcher, internally called “Google Home,” that integrates the Google Search app and the home screen. All that means on the surface is that users have slightly easier access to search and Google Now, but under the hood there are huge changes—the entire home screen is being drawn by Google Search.

Despite being a headline feature of KitKat and being integrated into Google Search (which ships on every Android device), Google has stated that the new launcher is exclusive to the Nexus 5. We find that a little hard to believe—why would Google integrate something into its most popular app if it didn’t intend to ship it out to as many people as possible? The “Google Home” version of Search that came with the Nexus 5 was version 3.0, while the version of search that most devices had at the time was version 2.8.

Late yesterday, a new version of Google Search hit the Play Store for everyone running Android 4.1 and higher—Google Search version 3.1. All the Google Home code was completely intact, meaning that Google just shipped its new launcher out to every modern Android phone. In order for Google Home to work, it requires a tiny enabler app that comes with the Nexus 5. The enabler app isn’t being shipped out to these other devices, so while 99 percent of the code is now on everyone’s device (or it will be when the rollout finishes), it’s disabled.

Google Home on the supposedly unsupported Nexus 7. Search 3.1 added a dynamic grid that supports different screen sizes.

Grabbing the enabler app from the Nexus 5 and installing it to an unsupported device works, but for Search 3.0, the results were buggy. On a Nexus 7, the keyboard would open every time you started up Google Home, the search bar was off center, and the icon grid was way too dense. A really interesting thing happens when you upgrade your Nexus 7 from Search 3.0 to 3.1, though. The update contains Google Home bug fixes specifically for devices that Google says won’t be running Google Home anytime soon. On the Nexus 7, the keyboard no longer pops up, the search bar is properly aligned, and the grid takes on a much more appropriate layout.

The app drawer fix adds some layout information called “dynamic_grid,” meaning that Google Home is now equipped to correctly size the app drawer for all sorts of different screen sizes. There are dynamic grids for the other parts of Google Home, too. Remember, though, that the new home screen is not coming to other devices. Google is spending time supporting unsupported devices just for fun… right?