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Google Contacts could pick up handy reachability tweaks soon
Flags are moving UI elements around to make them accessible
Most of the best Android phones are large yet pocketable slabs of glass, and it can be hard to reach all corners of the display without using your second thumb. Accessibility features like One-handed mode on Android help matters by scaling down the entire display, but lay waste to a large amount of the screen in the process. Google Contacts could soon join the small number of apps designing their way around reachability issues with a few critical user interface (UI) changes.
Never miss someone’s special day again with Google Contacts’ new birthday section
With two Google apps reminding, it’s unlikely you’ll miss someone’s special day
In the last few months, Google has invested a lot of development efforts into the Contacts app to ensure it stays up to date with features like a Material You widget and support for contact addition from other Workspace apps on the web. The Contacts app also picked up a new Highlights tab in December last year, which now has a new section showing upcoming events like birthdays for saved contacts.
In the last week alone, we've seen Google Assistant introduce delightful new powers, but we've also seen a disaster for the service where it couldn't censor itself from using a racial slur. Now, we've just heard that a new Assistant related feature is coming to the Google Contacts app. You may have used the voice assistant to phone a contact or family member when you couldn’t touch your phone. If you use voice commands for calling frequently, you’ll be happy to see a new card in the Google Contacts app with everything Assistant knows about specific saved phone numbers.
Google Contacts introduces Gmail-style chips for filtering
Gmail-inspired advanced filtering options for contacts would be a boon
Contacts was one of the first Google apps to get a Material You redesign, back in July 2021. Android 13 doesn’t pack as many visual changes as last year's release, so Google developers seem to have pivoted their focus towards ease of use and homogeneity across the company’s app offerings. We're seeing evidence for that now in Google Contacts, with the introduction of filters to help find the people you're looking for more easily.
Google Contacts is already getting its Material You UI makeover
Complete with rounded corners and squircles
We're still a beta or so away from a stable build of Android 12 becoming available to the public, but that doesn't mean we haven't already seen some ripple effects from its upcoming makeover. A few apps, like Chrome and Camera, have already received minor Material You touch-ups, and today, it's Contacts' turn. A new update to the app brings along some automatic themes, but you can take advantage of some of its fresh look even if you're running Android 11.
Some of us are better at keeping our contacts list neat and tidy than others (yes, I do still have the numbers of all those old high school friends I haven't seen in years). Clearing outdated entries is an excellent habit to develop, but no one wants to delete vital information accidentally. That's why Google added a trash folder to Contacts on the web last year, a helpful tool only held back by its missing mobile support. At least, it was missing, as it seems the Contacts app has picked up the feature relatively recently.
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- In an earlier version of this article, we stated that this new pop-up was created with App Slices. These are completely unrelated, however, as they are UI templates that show up within the Google Search app and Assistant, pulling content like Maps address information and Uber price estimates from the respective apps. We updated this post to reflect that.
With the introduction of Android Q, Google started putting common system settings such as WiFi, Bluetooth, and others in convenient cards that slide up when needed. The company seems to take a liking of this approach, as it just started rolling out a similar feature for Google Contacts that pops up when you add a new contact via another app.
Google Contacts v2.7 is rolling out, but you're not likely to see anything different in the UI. This update likely fixes some bugs and lines up a few new features. A teardown points to a brand new widget that will include a list of contacts. We'll also be able to look forward to a clever tool that will suggest names for contacts based on sources like Google Maps and your corporate directory if they're available.
Every week, I examine somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred app updates while looking for changes. The most interesting things turn into APK Teardowns or Download posts. Many of the remaining updates are unremarkable, amounting to a few bug fixes, routine updates to libraries, or even just pixel-level adjustments to layouts and images. However, there are usually a few updates that land somewhere in between. I don't want to spam readers with dozens of short posts, but I hate to ignore things that people might want to know about, so I'm going to wrap up the leftovers for a little weekend reading and call it Update Notes.
A new version of Google Contacts came out yesterday, but it unfortunately doesn't seem to solve the recent issue with contact syncing that some Oreo users are reporting. This update appears to mostly fix bugs, but it does come with a couple of minor tweaks and some preparation for new feature additions in the future.
Google is starting off the week with an update to the Contacts app. After poking around for quite some time, it looks like there aren't any notable changes on the surface, but changes to the resources suggest that we'll soon be able to turn on real-time location sharing with other people directly from within the Contacts app.
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If you've been craving some visual changes on your phone, an update to Google's Contacts app is rolling out with a few tweaks that are pretty noticeable. This version brings back full-bleed contact photos and adds a quick access bar. There are also a few other visual tweaks and a filter for the contact list has been moved. As always, you can grab the latest update from the APK Mirror link at the bottom.
Google has finally published the official Android Phone and Contacts apps on the Play Store this morning, though predictably only devices that have these system apps preinstalled can actually install them.