When the first signs of Material 3 Expressive started showing up in Android’s QPR betas, I wasn’t impressed. Even as my colleague Mishaal raved about it and how good it looked and documented its progress in every beta, I still didn’t jump on that hype train. When the update finally landed with Android 16 QPR1, I avoided installing it for a few weeks. In my mind, I was protesting against another unnecessary design change.
Material You was good enough. It still looked nice, it worked well, I was used to it, and everyone I knew with a Pixel phone was used to it. It didn’t need a facelift and thousands of wasted development resources when Google’s teams could’ve spent that time implementing actually useful features instead of Material 3 Expressive. At least that’s what I thought. Then I set up my new Pixel 10 Pro XL and… I was smitten.
One month later, are you still enjoying Material 3 Expressive on your Pixel? 209 votes Yes. 75 % No. 6 % I'm indifferent. 6 % I don't have a Pixel. 13 %
Material 3 Expressive feels alive and playful
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
I’m not alone in feeling this way. Two-thirds of you said you love Material 3 Expressive on Android. You said it’s “more vibrant,” “it looks better,” it’s “much better than I thought it would be,” and “an overall positive change.” Someone even left a ❤️ emoji as a comment — no other words needed. I didn’t want to agree with these comments; I tried to keep my grumpy, change-for-the-sake-of-change hating feelings, and shrug at the squiggly wiggly lines, bouncy icons, blurry backgrounds, and funky animations. I even tried to adopt Robert’s “Euclanoia” word to describe my feelings.
Material 3 Expressive looks like whoever designed it was having the time of their lives doing that, and it's contagious.
But I admit, I was wrong. I love all of it. I love how playful and fresh everything looks, how smooth and natural the animations feel, how jolly the new typography looks, and how familiar yet still “new” my quick settings, notifications, app drawer, and lockscreen look. Everything is bolder, more colorful, and has more contrast now. It’s like every element on the screen pops up when I look at it. Material 3 Expressive looks happy, and young, but mostly happy. It seems like whoever designed it was having the time of their lives doing so. And it’s contagious; you can’t stay indifferent to that.
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