Joe Maring / Android Authority
TL;DR Google is currently in the middle of bringing its Material 3 Expressive design language to its Android apps.
Earlier this year we got a preview of how this would impact Google One, looking at the app’s settings screen.
We’re now able to see many more Expressive elements throughout the app, but these still aren’t publicly accessible.
Halfway through July may not be official the midpoint of summer, but it sure feels like it. While some of us have been enjoying the season down at the beach, or off camping somewhere, Google developers have been hard at work recasting the look of the company’s Android software library in the mold of Material 3 Expressive. Several weeks back, we brought you an early look at how those revisions were impacting the Google One app, and today we’ve got some further progress to share.
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When we last checked in, Google had really only just started giving Google One its Expressive makeover, and all we had to show you at the time were some revisions we spotted to the app’s settings screen.
This time around, we’re looking at the new version 1.270.780727739 build of Google One, and we can see a whole lot more Expressive elements starting to be implemented. For a reminder, here’s how the app looks as we know it today:
That’s still what you’ll see running Google’s latest release, but we were able to get the app to give us a little preview of some of the in-development Expressive changes that aren’t yet user-facing:
If you’ve been following along with the rest of our coverage of Google work towards Expressive-izing other Android apps, the changes visible here probably seem all kinds of familiar to you. We’ve got increased contrast that better helps app content stand out against the background, and rounder, wider-radius curves throughout.
Heavier text weighting should further help with usability, and it looks like Google is making some smart choices to tighten up screen layout, helping to reduce wasted white space — without making One feel particularly cluttered, either.
Sure, we kind of miss that intro graphic up top, but have to concede that the app feels a little more professional without it. It’s possible Google could implement further Expressive tweaks before it’s ready to publicly debut Google One’s new look, but it feels like this could really be about the extent of what we should expect.
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