Google is finally rolling out a straightforward Material You redesign of Play Books for Android. It follows the new icon introduced last year, with the app rarely seeing updates.
Version 3/18: This update is now widely rolling out via the Play Store almost a month later. It’s the same version as before and there’s a small dark theme bug with the top tabs in your Library.
Original 2/20: While the app received an interactive Material You widget in 2022, the rest of Play Books was stuck with a Google Material Theme.
Old vs. new
The Material You redesign starts with a pill-shaped search bar, though the account menu was updated a long time ago. Then there’s the tall Material You bottom with a pill-shaped tab indicator. The height matches Google Home, Photos, and even Tasks, but not others: Play Store or Gmail. Google also updated the navigation rail, which was added last year, on Android tablets and foldables to the Material 3 style.
In the Library tab, you’ll notice how the carousels go from pills to rounded rectangles, while various standalone buttons in the app go the opposite direction. There’s a dark theme mismatch for the Your books/Shelves/Series/Upcoming tab background.
The Wishlist and Shop tab have been similarly modernized, though there are no changes in the reading view or settings.
Play Books is just using the default blue accent with no Dynamic Color, even though the account menu is properly themed.
Version 2024.2.9.0 of Google Play Books is rolling out now via the Play Store.
Other redesigns from active, consumer-facing Google apps that we’re still waiting for include Authenticator, Classroom, and Play Games.
Meanwhile, Google Search has its own design language and even abandoned a Material 3 bottom bar. We don’t expect Google Fit to get any more meaningful updates.
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