Google has today announced the dates for this year’s Google I/O developers’ conference, with the annual event being set for May 28th and 29th, 2015. According to the event’s website (which is notably completely plastered with Material Design), registration begins March 17th, 2015 at 9 AM PDT.
You might not have heard of it, but Google has a first-party app on the Play Store called Field Trip that basically serves as a guide to all things located in your vicinity. The Mountain View company just recently released a new version of the app, bringing to it Material Design and a flurry of other improvements.
While the app used to sport a vintage look and feel that made it somewhat unique, the new version goes the opposite direction and simplifies the entire experience. In addition to the redesign, Google says that the new version comes with new content from “hundreds” of publishers and performance improvements.
Here’s the full change log:
V2.0.5
* New sleek & modern design.
* Easier to discover and browse more cool stuff around you.
* New content from hundreds of publishers.
* Performance improvements.
You can get Field Trip on the Play Store for free.
Google is today rolling out Chrome 40 for iOS and with it bringing Material Design to Chrome users on iDevices, OS X Handoff support, and optimizations for iOS 8 and the new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.
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Screenshots of the prior version
WordPress today has announced an update to its Android app, bumping it to version 3.5. The update adds a handful of new features, but most notably it gives the app an interface overhaul to make it fit in with the Material Design theme on Android. WordPress has added round avatars, a plethora of new icons, and changed the colors of the interface for users.
Last weekend, Berlin-based developer Matt Aussaguel decided to further his Material Design exploration by creating a website for generating and exporting Material Design color palettes for Android Lollipop. Aussaguel believes that Material Palette could be the first Material Design color palette generator and a very useful tool for both developers and user interface designers alike.
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Google is rolling out a completely redesigned version of its iPhone and iPad app with its Material Design look and feel right down to the app icon.
The latest version of the search app now presents a bottom navigation bar (which can slide out of view) that presents a persistent Google button for searching for new information. The navigation bar also offers a button for quickly accessing recent search pages, something that feels similar to multitasking between apps on Android.
Also notable as part of the redesign is the optimization searching for photos has received. In the latest version of Google’s iOS app, image results now take on a full-screen, mosaic look for presenting larger results. The update also packs in deep Google Maps integration for location searches including support for Google Street View right in the app for iPhone users. You can read the full change log below:
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Google has updated its account settings page with a material design makeover, and a shiny new myaccount.google.com URL. In a brief blog post, Google said:
Tabs have been removed in favor of a simple, single landing page that links directly to existing account resources. All other functionality is unchanged.
The YouTube for Android app also got a material design update a few days ago.
YouTube for Android has finally been updated with a Material Design interface for devices running Lollipop. The entire app has been redesigned, from the “What to Watch” screen to individual channel and video pages.
Aside from the new design, the updated app also includes many new filter options for searches, allowing users to find videos that meet specific criteria. For example, you can now search only for videos that are available in HD, or have closed captioning enabled. You can also search for live streams.
A day after rolling out updates to nearly every app it makes, Google this afternoon has announced an update to the Play Store itself. In a post on Google+, Google employee Krill Grouchnikov announced the update, saying that it’s coming soon to Android devices everywhere. The update makes several user interface tweaks for both pre-Lollipop devices and ones on Lollipop. It bumps the app to version 5.1.
Google ushered in a new design language called Material Design as one of the biggest new elements of Android Lollipop, and an upcoming Linux distribution called Quartz OS aims to bring the clean and simplistic user interface to the desktop. Quartz OS is essentially the marriage of Material Design and Linux, aiming to harness the flexibility and power of the JavaScript-based markup language QML.
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Motorola Mobility recently updated its Camera and Gallery with a splash of Material Design, giving its in-house software a refreshed feel. Owners of the Droid Turbo, Moto X and Droid Ultra can now use a wrist twist hand gesture to alternate between their respective handset’s front and back cameras, and they’ll also notice a refined flat interface that should fit in nicely with Motorola’s latest smartphone.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen pre-release versions of Android 5.0 running on a Samsung Galaxy S4 and Galaxy S5. Today, however, we’ll be taking a look at Google’s new mobile operating system on a Galaxy Note 3. Described as a rough draft of the Android 5.0, this alleged internal build of Lollipop for Samsung’s king-size smartphone should help give an idea what’s in store for owners of this popular handset.
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With the release of Android Lollipop for a wider lineup of Nexus devices expected to occur any day now, the official Google Search app has been updated with a brand new design and several new features that make searching for everything from the best sushi in Chicago to Van Gogh research for a school project that much better of an experience.
First and foremost, the Google Search app has been revamped with a Material Design user interface and that includes bold colors, fluid animations and simplified layouts. Nexus 6, Nexus 9 and Samsung Galaxy Note 4 users also benefit from being able to activate “Ok, Google” searches even when the smartphone is unplugged and the display is off.
The latest version Google’s official app is more effective at organizing your day-to-day life by automatically pulling events that it feels you might want to follow up on, like catching up with Chris over dinner or getting drinks with Susan. Normally, these small events would be buried in your inbox and you might forget to follow up on them later.
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Google is slowly updating its apps with Material Design guidelines ahead of the widespread release of Android Lollipop, with the official Android Wear companion app the latest set to receive a makeover. This morning, leaked screenshots surfaced of both the new Android Wear app alongside the latest version of Google Play Services.
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Google announced a new update for its Google Maps apps for Android and iOS today that adds a fresh new Material Design layout focusing on bright colors and real world surfaces and shadows. The software’s refreshed interface is set to roll out over the next few days, with new features like dinner reservations from OpenTable (US only) and enhanced information cards with photos and reviews of popular attractions near your location.
Continuing the onslaught of Material Design updates over the past few weeks, Google this evening has started rolling out an update to the Google Play Games Android app. As you can guess, the update is packed full of user interface tweaks, making it fit in with Android 5.0 Lollipop.
The update introduces a new icon, as well as themes we’ve seen throughout other Google Material Design updates. There are new colors, new animations, and new fonts. Google describes the update as being “bigger and bolder” than before.
The update is rolling out now via the Play Store, but it is a staged rollout, so it may take a little while to hit your device.
Google today announced it’s adding new ways to add money to its Google Wallet service in addition to some new features that will make keeping an eye on your balance easier. The app also appears to be getting a bit of a Material Design update on Android (as pictured above).
First up, you will now be able to setup automatic bank transfers that will ensure there is always money to spend in your Google Wallet account. The recurring transfers allow you to schedule weekly, bi-weekly or monthly deposits and can be cancelled at any time:
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Just about every major Google-made app in the Play Store has been updated with a Material Design makeover, but the house of Android doesn’t want to stop there. Today, Google published a checklist to help developers build Material Design style applications.
Users of the popular third-party keyboard SwiftKey will be glad to hear that two new Material Design themes are now available for the keyboard ahead of the upcoming release of Android Lollipop. The two new themes, based on Google’s new Material Design guidelines, are named Material Dark and Material Light and available through the SwiftKey Store today.
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Google has updated its Play Store app with a more comprehensive Material Design makeover, and a What’s New section that is both clearer and easier to use.
Version 5.0.31 sees a new, flat Play Store logo, together with flatter icons in the sidebar, and the categories now use the bright colors of the Material Design palette …
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Google recently made some behind the scenes changes to Google+ and today the company gave its social media platform’s Android app a cosmetic overhaul, aligning it with its new Material Design gospel. The revamped software features a flat layout with bright almost Kool-Aid red accents that really pop.
Android L’s official release is getting closer and while some tech enthusiasts are tinkering with Google’s latest mobile operating system, OEMs are already preparing their hardware for Mountain View’s new software. Quite possibly the busiest of the bunch, Samsung appears to be testing Android L on its Galaxy S5 and the folks at SamMobile have managed to get their hands on a rough build of the forthcoming software.
We knew back in June that Google’s in-car operating system Android Auto would run with a user-interface designed by Google itself. All developers are able to do is choose a particular template, then send the text and data from the phone app to the interface, so that everything appearing on the car display will have a consistent look & feel. It’s the same approach Google has taken with Android Wear and Android TV.
Arstechnica today pointed us to a developer overview for Android Auto providing a good sense of the visual appearance of the interface. What is shown above is the generic interface, on the left, and an example of how developers are able to customize it on the right …
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Android L is on its way and countless developers have been busy updating their applications to line up with the look and feel of Google’s Material Design language. In addition to third-party devs, the search giant has managed to tweak some of its own in-house software as well and the folks at Android Police have managed to get their hands on some early screenshots of an upcoming update for Google Play.