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Your Chromebook's login screen is getting a Material Design tweak
The login screen gets subtle visual changes in the Beta channel
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It's been a couple of years since the Chrome OS UI got any considerable design updates, some of which were polarizing changes that stirred controversy in the Chromebook community. Google has since been steadily updating its core apps and system UI to a more modern Material Design style, including the new Media app and tablet mode experience that rolled out in the Chrome OS Stable channel this year. If there's one component that still feels out of place, it's the login and lock screen—more specifically, the password field. That's changing soon, though, as Google is experimenting with a refreshed text field to make it look more consistent with other system UI elements.
Google Analytics for Android gets new Material theme, gesture account switcher, and more with version 4.0 (APK Download)
No dark theme yet, though
Most of Google's mobile applications have switched over to the company's updated Material Theme, but there are still a few holdouts. One of them was the Google Analytics app, which hasn't had a significant design update since 2016, but that has finally changed with version 4.0.
There are plenty of Reddit clients in the Play Store, but Sync for Reddit is one of the most popular. The free version has more than a million downloads, and the paid version has over 100,000. The app has looked the same for several years, and it was starting to fall behind the times. Now, a complete material redesign has started rolling out in beta. You probably want to get on this.
Google Drive’s built-in document scanner gets a Material Design facelift
The easy-to-use scanner just got better
While there are a ton of apps that let you make a nice clean PDF file from your physical documents, or save a digital copy of your receipts, why dig through third-party apps when there's a scanner built right into Drive? For one, the Google app comes pre-installed in nearly all Android phones, so you don’t need to download anything extra, and it’s a one-stop solution to scan and directly upload the file to Drive. Following the Drive app's Material makeover, Google is now introducing a similar iconography for its scanning interface.
Google occasionally revamps its apps and services, and there are invariably some people who strenuously object to the change. Such was the case in 2017 when Google deployed a material makeover for YouTube. Some users have been stubbornly sticking with the old UI this whole time, but Google plans to force all the stragglers to migrate next month.
Google Blogger gets surprise Material Design update on Android after years of neglect [APK Download]
Blogger used to be the go-to platform for anyone who wanted to share their words and opinions with the internet, but it has long been surpassed by social media on the consumer side and Wordpress and Medium on the more professional side. We assumed that Google would just let the service die slowly by not providing updates to it anymore, but today, a new Android app version has been released on the Play Store after two years of stagnation. The update replaces the Holo interface of old with a modern Material redesign, bringing the product in line with Google's other offers.
[Update: Now official] Google rolls out new Material Play Store interface with bottom navigation bar
Last month we reported the Play Store was about to get a design overhaul, including a new navigation bar that moved to the bottom of the screen. Although this could only be activated by fiddling with feature flags when we published our initial post, Google is now widely rolling out the new interface to users.
The switch from Holo to Material Design in Google's own software took years, even if the company had fewer apps to worry about updating back then. In contrast, the move to the new Google Material Theme look is swifter, with many of Google's apps already updated with the design and a few more still waiting their turn. Among the latter are Google's standalone apps for Docs, Sheets, and Slides, even if their parent Drive app has already had it for a few months. But now, Docs appears to be the first app among its brethren to get a taste of the new UI.
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Google began a Material Theme refresh of its desktop search UI last fall comprising tweaks all users see now, including a search "box" with rounded corners, more white, and a persistent search bar. The next step may be nigh, as the search engine is testing the addition of Material Theme icons that sit beside each search menu filter (e.g., News, Maps, Images, etc.) and are colorized when their corresponding filter is active.
Google has been a consistent fan of server-side updates for many years now, and that doesn't seem to be changing anytime soon. Within the past week, the company rolled out a new interface for the Play Store, took it away, and now reintroduced it. There's a new app update that enables the Material theme, and we've got the APK for it.
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.
A few months ago, Google began testing a new interface for search card results, which removes the bold header color, uses a new Follow button with the Discover logo, and introduces more tabs for accessing relevant information about the subject. That interface seems to be rolling out more widely now and comes with redesigns for almost all search result cards and plenty of added information.
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- Kieron Quinn has shared more screenshots of this new Play Store interface, including the search UI, and Music store.
Google has been busy refreshing the Material Design in its apps recently, and the Play Store seems to be among the next ones to get the treatment. Both 9to5Google and one of our tipsters has uncovered the new interface in the latest build by activating a feature flag, which hints the software is about to get a makeover.
Widgets, once one of the most appealing features of Android and now all but abandoned. A few years ago, an update to a widget, especially one from a Google app, would be noticed immediately and we would get dozens of tips about it in the span of a few hours. Nowadays hardly anyone uses widgets to even notice or care. So you may forgive us for not seeing this major change in the Gmail widget, which occurred toward the end of last month.
The switch from the older Material Design to the new one, known as MD 2.0 or Material Theme among Android fans, has been a long process. Some apps like Photos adopted the change swiftly, while others like Maps have gone through small iterations, adding elements step by step. But those changes had yet to affect the web interface of Maps — until now that is. Some users are starting to see a new look, though it's still limited to parts of the UI.
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Google has been slowly but surely updating its apps to reflect the new Material Theming conventions, scorching many a retina in the process. The Google Drive app was already predominantly white, so the upcoming Drive revamp won't murder your eyes any worse. It will, however, add features like bottom navigation, an expanded search bar, and a new account switcher.
Whether you like or hate the stark whiteness of Google's Material Theme/Material Design 2/whatever you want to call it, its influence has been unceasingly percolating throughout the company's various apps and services. Google Docs and Google Voice are the latest to see changes, picking up a handful of tweaks including monochrome, hollowed-out iconography, rounded corners, and more white.
[Update: APK Download] Blindingly bright Google Material theme starts rolling out to Gmail app today
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Google gave the web version of Gmail a complete makeover in 2018, but the mobile app has remained mostly unchanged for years. We've been expecting a matching app update, and today is the big day. Google's new Material theme is hitting Gmail starting now. It looks like Google's other recently redesigned apps. Which is to say, it's bright.
Google Maps' Material transformation is an ongoing process. Over the past couple of months, we've seen one aspect after the other of the app change from the previous Material aesthetic to the new one — colloquially known as Material Design 2.0 or Material Theme. The most recent part of the UI to make the jump is the search interface.
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.