Google app testing Material Theme search bar, expands bubble-heavy Feed redesign

Abner Li | Jul 16 2018 - 3:01 pm PT

The Google Material Theme is coming to more and more products as seen with Android P DP4 and Google Maps just last month. This new look is now being tested in one aspect of the Google app, while a related redesign of the Google Feed is more widely rolling out.

In recent weeks, we’ve spotted the Google app testing a new search bar directly underneath the logo and just above the list of Feed articles. This new design drops the previous slightly rounded, rectangular box for a pill-shaped search bar.

This faint gray outlined boundary drops the shadow effect for a cleaner look that is inline with Google’s Material Theme, as well as the proliferation of pill buttons throughout the company’s recent updates.

Meanwhile, back in April, the Google app began testing a new look for the Feed located to the left of homescreens. Large topic bubbles featuring a Google-colored asterisk clearly denote the subject of each card. To the right of this pill is an overflow menu to edit your interests.

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Underneath is the headline and article summary and an accompanying image to the right. Google has made some tweaks here including a rounded preview of the photo and the AMP icon in the top-right of that image instead of the bottom besides the site name and time stamp. Additionally, Google Sans is used for all text on the screen.

This makes for a less-dense design compared to the current iteration where all parts of an article are displayed on one compact card. We have yet to encounter the new Feed design ourselves, but there are more reports of users receiving it. Meanwhile, the Material Theme search bar is live on two of our devices.

Update: We’ve just received the new Google app redesign on one of our devices. The first two screenshots show that the new design is also applied to the Feed in the Google app. Meanwhile, the Feed to the left of the homescreen still features the old compact cards for certain stories that don’t warrant a topic bubble. The overflow pane has also been redesigned with rounded corners.