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Based on a handful of recent reports, Google appears to be testing some Material tweaks to Gboard's settings pane. Changes include new outline-style icons and the usual blinding white background.
Following a slew of second-generation Material Design updates for the web over the past month or so (namely Calendar, Classroom, and Google Accounts), Google is bringing its modern design aesthetic to several more G Suite platforms on the web. Material Design is hitting Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Sites beginning today, January 15.
Google's been slowly but surely updating its apps to match its new Material Theme look (sometimes called "Material Design 2," much to Google's chagrin). In some cases we've seen substantial changes, sometimes the differences are minor. Play Books is the latest first-party app to get a new coat of paint, and in this case, the tweaks are pretty small.
Whether you know it as Material theme or Material Design 2, Google continues to roll out its refreshed Material aesthetic across all of its various properties. The latest to gain the new look is the Google search app itself, which is rolling out a new bottom bar look that swaps out a search button for a shortcut to 'Collections,' where users can find saved content like images, bookmarks, and Maps lists. Additionally, the minimalist new look is coming to the search app's settings. If all that's not enough search-related news, one tipster has also given us a first look at the UI for 'Your contributions,' a search feature that's not live yet.
With every few updates, Google Maps seems to walk closer and closer to a full-fledged refresh of its Material interface, helping it go along with the new direction Google is taking this year with its app design language. We've seen a new look for the main interface, an updated side menu, overhauled hotel listings, new fonts in many places throughout the app, a persistent Overview/Reviews/Photos bar on some place listings, and even an update to the look of the app on Android Auto. But over the past couple of days, one more part of the app is getting its re-looking session: Directions.
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The refreshed Material look, also known as Material theme or Material Design 2 in our circles, continues its march toward Google service domination. We've already seen it hit several apps on our phones, and its web expansion has been surprisingly rapid too. After Gmail, Google News, the Google support pages and personal account page, Android Messages, Hangouts Chat, and even the Chrome web store, now's the time for us to have a glimpse at what Translate would look like in this new design.
Google Photos' Android app was updated back in September to Google's hot new, mostly white aesthetic. At the time, the site still lagged behind with older iconography and layout, but no longer. Today Google has pushed that same Material Theme/Material Design 2 look onto the Google Photos site.
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- A few days following the release of this update, Google has finally made the name-change official, revealing "Files by Google" as the new moniker for Files Go.
Google has been steadily updating its first-party apps to its "Google Material Theme" — which most of the internet continues to call Material Design 2, much to Google's apparent chagrin. The latest addition is Files Go, which has both a new look and a new name to go with it. The beta version of the app has both the stereotypical, mostly-white design, and it now just goes by the name of "Files."
Google is continuing to slowly update all of its apps to a refreshed Material Design style (MD 2.0, to some) and the latest product to get this treatment is Google Drive on Android — the web version has already been updated. It's not actually live yet, but the code is there ready to go, so we can expect it to roll out to users soon.
Several Google apps—Phone, Contacts, and Photos—have been updated with new interfaces in the past month or so, and the Calculator app is the latest recipient. Unsurprisingly, the update is purely cosmetic, adding Google's new favorite shade of blue and a lot more white. In other words, you guys probably aren't going to like this.
In my opinion, Google Photos is probably the best service the company has ever released. Like all of Google's first-party apps, it was just a matter of time until it got its own refreshed aesthetic to match Android 9 Pie. A so-called "Material Design 2" update to Google Photos has just landed together with a major version change to v4.0. So far almost all the differences are skin deep, but we've got a download if you'd like to take a look.
Google has been testing major Chrome changes for several months. The updated Material theme has gone through various iterations, and the Android app redesign has been in the works for well over a year. Customizable New Tab Pages, an improved address bar, and other features have also been in development.
Material Design isn't some immutable standard. It's a flowing, breathing, evolving design. As our own former editor Liam (now a Googler) pointed out today, the current expressions we've seen of Google Material are just one potential way to implement the changing design philosophy. So if you're eager to check the possible futures for Google's Material designs, you should probably watch this video.
Back in April, Google began experimenting with a new, alternate version of its Material UI for the Chrome browser - but it was as an experimental flag, not a mainline feature. That appears to be changing. With the latest builds of Chrome on the Canary channel for Windows, Linux, and Chrome OS, the Material 2 UI is now the default theme (on Mac you'll still need to enable it manually).
Google has released a set of tools that help developers more easily create apps in line with both their own brand identity and the evolving Material Design guidelines. The Material Theme Editor, available as a plugin for the macOS design app Sketch, automatically applies consistent thematic changes to things like buttons, fonts, and color palettes throughout an app.
It looks like Chrome's iconic trapezoidal tabs might soon be going away. The tab's design, which has remained essentially the same since Chrome was first released almost 10 years ago, is undergoing a bit of a refresh, shifting from their old shape into more of a rounded-corner rectangle. The change is currently present (as an option) in the experimental Canary build of the browser.
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- Google employee and "Chromium evangelist" François Beaufort shared today that this "brand new interface for touch and convertibles devices" is now in the Chrome OS Canary channel by default. He links to a commit that notes this touch-optimized UI will initially be enabled by default for Chrome OS touch devices, and even includes a visual comparison to highlight the changes:
A reference to "Material Design 2" was noticed in a Chromium Gerrit commit back in February, which was made private soon after it was pointed out. That commit has since been reopened to the public and has changed references to a Material Design update to mentions of a touch-optimized UI for Chrome. There is, however, a hint that Google plans to roll out a Material Design 2 refresh for Chrome on the browser's 10th birthday in September.