Play Books with Google Material Theme revamp more widely rolling out

Abner Li | Jan 19 2019 - 7:58 pm PT

Many Google apps in recent months have been updated with the company’s Material Theme. The latest is Play Books, with that revamp now beginning to more widely roll out on Android.

Play Books follows Play Games, Play Movies & TV, and of course the Play Store in receiving the Google Material Theme. In terms of functionality, this redesign does not significantly add or remove features.

A search bar is still at the top, but with rounded corners. The hamburger button is to the left, while Cast and voice search are on the other side. There is a centered app icon with “Books” on initial load, but that’s replaced after a few seconds with a “Search” prompt.

The carousel of recently read content is larger and features more prominent book covers, while the blue background has been swapped out for stark white. Below are two carousels to switch between recommendations for Ebooks and Audiobooks. An overflow icon in the top-right corner now opens a sheet from the bottom of the display that notes the title, author, and cover, as well as a slew of options.

The Library tab is unchanged in terms of organization. A top carousel leverages the new Material tab indicators for Shelves, Ebooks, Audiobooks, and Series. The first page is still organized by Start, Continue, and Finished for quicker access.

Meanwhile, the Shop tab is also the same, save for the new Material Theme elements. There are no light blue backgrounds in the app, but that hue is still used as the accent color.

The reading experience only features some slight tweaks. The chapter index view is now in the bottom-left corner next to the timeline scrubber, while the page that houses Chapters, Bookmarks, and Notes no longer features a themed app bar that matches the book cover. The menu for adjusting the font, background color, and more is still in the top-right.

This Material Theme for Play Books was first spotted last week (via Android Police), and as of today is available for some more users. It is not yet widely rolled out, but hit two out of four devices that we checked this evening. Version 5.0.5 of Play Books appears to be required for the server-side update.