The rumors have been pretty hot for a while that is going to make some notable changes to Android when it launches the xel phones on Oct. 4.

have some more evidence of what this will look like thanks to a deeper dive into several different As. The speculation is that much of the hinted features will come forth with Android 7.1 a new xel uncher, both to be unveiled with the xel xel X/a>.

The teardown by Android lice is of course no guarantee of what’s to come, but the site has a pretty good track record of calling their shots.

y this matters: The break from Nexus to xel is more than just a name change. The phones will be marketed as the best of ’s hardware software working together should include several features to make them st apart. ’re already seeing hints of this with the promise of launcher shortcuts a host of new round application icons. 

uncher shortcuts

The new feature that would impact you the most directly if you part with your cash for one of the new phones is launcher shortcuts. Essentially this would offer a series of actions that you could initiate by performing some type of gesture on the app’s icon. That could be a hard-press on a pressure-sensitive screen, or a short swipe down, or a long-press…you get the idea.

Much like 3D Touch on iOS, you’d see a menu of specific actions you could take. Android lice created their own mockup of the type of shortcuts you may see based on evidence garnered from various teardowns.

Android lice

There isn’t any indication whether the xel or xel Xwill have a pressure sensitive screen, so these would likely be launched with some sort of gesture. 

Going round

You may have noticed in the above mockup that all of the app icons were round. That’s not a coincidence. Evidence indicates that the xel uncher will force all the icons to be circular, much in the same way that icon packs can change up the look on anyone’s home screen.

If this moves forward, we’d expect to see some developer guidelines for how icons can be properly configured for this change. Some may not be thrilled, as the freedom to create icons of any size shape is one of the hallmarks of Android. Of course where some see freedom, others see clutter. Samsung adopted a similar interface with the latest version of Touchz on the Galaxy Note7.

The evidence matches what we’ve expected to do with Nougat its latest phones by adding in further differentiation to the stock Android experience. It’s a solid appetizer as the main course awaits on Oct. 4, when unveils its new phones at a San Francisco event.