latest
Google Photos flirts with returning to an interface we thought it outgrew
Who are we kidding — you're never too old for hamburgers
Google loves to switch up its style every so often — it's why Android 12 had such a shift in appearance with Material You. Usually, an all-new design philosophy means all of its apps will follow suit, whether with dynamic themes or bottom navigation bars. It's not often we see Google switch back to an older design, but with an unexpected change to Photos, the company seems to be setting a pattern with its current trends.
Read update
There's nothing Google loves more than to experiment with redesigns. With the power of server-side updates, you'll often see one of your most-used apps flash an all-new look — before it disappears in the blink of an eye. That's what happened earlier this summer when the classic hamburger menu began disappearing from Google Weather's search bar. After flipping the switch off and on a few times, it seems its redesign is finally here to stay.
Read update
- As reported by 9to5Google, the Weather app redesign is being reverted, possibly due to a bug with switching between and searching for other locations. The hamburger menu lives once again...for now.
The arrival of gesture-based navigation on Android hasn't boded well for hamburger menus, and Google is now actively doing away with them. The Google Play Store recently killed the hamburger menu, and now the Google Weather app is following suit.
If you cruise by the Android developer site with any frequency, you may have noticed that it looks a little different. There aren't a lot of tiny individual adjustments, but rather two immediately obvious changes to the look and layout.
[Update: Check Now] Play Store For Android Gets Search Bar With Hamburger Flip In Server-Side Update
Read update
- If you have not yet received this update yet, check now. It appears Google has flipped the switch for most users. Kirill Grouchnikov, the employee who showed off the new features above, informed users over Google+ yesterday that the changes were live and that, to get them, you must swipe the Play Store from recents and relaunch the app.
Google is pushing out an update to the Play Store's Android interface that replaces the action bar with a standard search bar. Inside are the words "Google play," which, when tapped, show off the hamburger flip animation and pull up recent Play Store searches. Kirill Grouchnikov, one of the company's user interface engineers, teased the feature in GIFs on Google+.
The IMDb app is an immensely useful piece of software to have installed on a mobile phone. I don't open it often, but once I'm in the mood to hit up the local theater, there's the app, just ready to serve me the latest trailers, movie showtimes, and ticket prices. The beta version of the app has reached 4.2, and it's tidying things up a bit. Options that were crowding up the Action Bar have now been moved into a slide-out navigation menu.
Popular radio and podcast streaming app Stitcher has made the leap to version 3.1 today, and while it hasn't picked up many new features along the way, the few it has are doozies: a new navigation menu makes it easier to get around the app, and you can now designate entire playlists for offline listening. This means you can start streaming at the comfort of your office desk and walk out for lunch without your listening session coming to an abrupt and jarring end.