Google Discover

Google appears to be testing a ‘cardless’ Discover Feed

Damien Wilde | Dec 10 2020 - 5:09 am PT

Google’s Discover Feed is more or less in a constant state of flux thanks to tests, experiments, and tweaks. It now looks as though Google is testing a clean, cardless Discover Feed.

Now this isn’t by any means the biggest UI tweak to the popular aggregated news and interest feed on select Android devices, but it’s notable nonetheless. This cardless iteration of the Discover Feed was spotted by Android Police and has a more see-through backdrop rather than the plain white or black background seen currently.

So when swiping right into your Google Discover Feed, the usual card-style layout is gone in favor of this cardless, minimal, “flat” look and feel. The bubbly outlines are gone and you can just about see any applied wallpaper in the background – although it isn’t fully transparent.

The search bar and current weather conditions also look like they have been relegated in this UI test. Provided you use the Pixel Launcher on a Made by Google phone, this probably won’t be an issue. However, if you don’t have a home screen widget for Search or the weather, we can see this being a little bit of a frustrating removal.

As AP notes, there is also a share button in this new interface, but we’re actually seeing that already on some of our own devices. It does mean that you don’t need to tap any overflow kebab menus to share articles and news snippets quickly though.

This cardless Discover Feed is also visible in the Google app when using the Discover tab there. But as with almost all UI tweaks and changes, this appears to be a limited A/B test and isn’t available widely. It definitely looks a look sleeker and cleaner than the current Discover Feed but losing some notable UI elements might be a frustration if it does roll out more widely.

Let us know down in the comments section below what you think of this cardless Discover Feed or if you are seeing it on any of your devices.