Google app

With Google Calendar set to lose Assistant Reminders, you’ll be forced to use the very basic and incredibly laggy UI that’s part of the Google app. It’s still bad, but Google recently rolled out some usability tweaks to Reminders and restored the dark mode.

Last month, Google updated At a Glance with flashlight reminders and Nest Doorbell alerts. The Pixel At a Glance widget could soon get a “Cross Device Timer” capability that integrates with Google Home.

For quite some time, the Google Weather app could only be found on Android phones, but it’s now coming to tablets.

Nearly two years after the last settings redesign, Google is taking another stab at making it easier to control and manage the ever-growing list of what Assistant can do.

Following the ongoing removal of Assistant Snapshot on Android, the Google for iOS app looks to be adding a “Notifications” tab.

In addition to a bottom field, the Google app is testing a Search bar that appears at the very top of your screen. It matches other first-party apps, but it is a departure from what Google Search has looked like on mobile for the past several years.

With the Pixel 2, the Pixel Launcher was revamped to place the search field at the bottom of your screen. Four years later, the Google app looks to be readying something similar with a bottom Search bar redesign.

Assistant Snapshot carries forward the legacy of Google Now, though its prominence is diminished compared to the previous feed. Its standing might be further de-prioritized following a pair of worrisome changes to Snapshot in the Google app and Assistant.

In July of last year, we spotted development of an “Assistant Chat Head” that never ended up launching. Google is now working on a more useful “Search bubble” chat head that provides quick access to text and voice lookup.

In a very welcome change from what we previously expected, the Google Weather Material You widgets are now live on existing Pixel phones with the latest Google app beta.

While Discover and Assistant Snapshot have gone through a handful of visual revamps in recent years, the rest of the Google app has remained the same. Google is now testing a settings redesign on Android that removes the “More” tab.

Following the big update in August, Google Podcasts for Android is getting a straightforward Material You redesign, though it’s not yet widely rolled out.

Google has been working on an in-app browser for Search on Android for quite sometime now. After being widely rolled out to the beta channel for the past few months, it has disappeared and reverted to Chrome Custom Tabs.

After redesigning the Weather app, Google’s next step is introducing Android 12 homescreen widgets. We enabled the first one last week, and the second Google widget coming is straight from the Pixel 6’s Material You advertising. 

After initial testing in May, Google today has widely rolled out a redesign of Android’s default Weather app. Part of Google Search, the experience was overdue for a modernization.