Latest news with #MaterialYou
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Yahoo
The new Google Drive video player is here
Google Drive's new video player for Android phones has a modern layout with playback controls for easy viewing. Android users will now enjoy a more user-friendly video player based on Material You. Google has drastically improved Drive's multimedia capabilities, making it a better platform for watching videos. Google Drive is one of the best file storage solutions for on-the-go, cloud-based setups, but it's been stuck in the Stone Age for quite a long time when it comes to watching videos on the service. While you can store multiple terabytes of family videos, old school projects, and whatever your heart desires on Drive, it has been a notoriously difficult-to-enjoy app to watch them on. To Google's credit, it has done a lot over the years to improve its multimedia capabilities, including making videos searchable with a transcript feature, adding DASH transcoders for videos to improve loading times, and letting users watch videos immediately after uploading them. The company knows what Drive's shortcomings are, and it has taken a massive step towards making it a palatable solution for Android users to enjoy all of their clips on. Back in October, Google announced that it was giving Drive's video player a major splash of Material You in the relatively near future on the web version of the storage solution. For mobile users, the future is now, old man; Google is rolling out a smoother, more modern video player for Android phones. The layout has three large buttons for playback controls in the middle of the screen, buttons for captions, full screen mode, playback speed, and loop in the top right, and the scrubber at the bottom. Material You looks good in this form, and leads us to wonder why it took so long to implement it here. As for timing of its rollout, it is already available to Google Workspace customers, Workspace Individual subscribers, and users with personal Google accounts. Realistically, Google Drive users on iOS devices don't have to worry about any sort of subpar video player or a visual upgrade. That's because when users on iPhones and iPads watch clips on Drive, they get kicked into an iOS or iPadOS-specific layout. For Android users, it wasn't until a deep dive into a March-based beta version of the Google Drive app that we recognized the prospect of this new video player. While many Android power users probably prefer to open videos on their phones through external media players like VLC for Android and RealPlayer, this upgraded look on Drive may keep more people from leaving the app when watching videos. It was a great evolutionary change for Drive on the Web back in late 2024, when Google finally upgraded from the YouTube-esque layout that had plagued Drive's visuals for a while. As a side note, that isn't to say YouTube's player layout is bad — far from it — but on Google Drive, it looks way out of place. Funnily enough, even as Drive's video player is looking less like YouTube than ever before across all platforms, Google announced that it was adding YouTube-style analytics for Drive video files in late May. It began rolling out to everyone on June 9.
Android Authority
12-06-2025
- Android Authority
6 big features missing on Android 16
Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority Google's big Android 16 update has arrived a tad early in the year — and that's good news as we get to play with new software a little ahead of schedule. It also means that the upcoming Pixel flagships will likely ship with the latest Android update out of the box, unlike last year. While the Pixel 10 series may get Android 16 at launch, the latest version still misses several noteworthy features in the stable release. Android 16 brings a lot of under-the-hood changes for all Android flagships (not just Pixels), but the more user-facing changes we all have been eagerly waiting for? Yeah, you will have to wait a little longer. Android 16 stable release: Hot or not? 1550 votes Hot 45 % Not 55 % Material 3 Expressive Google A big draw of the new Android version is the updated theming engine — a step up from the older Material You we've come to know and love from previous Android versions. It's more colorful, more personalized, and Google has even played around with text, shapes, and transparency to make it feel more modern. Justifying the 'Expressive' tag in its name, this Material You iteration is quite a sensory experience. Animations look bouncier, elements follow nice motion physics, and haptic feedback brings everything to life. It would've been even better if it launched with the first Android 16 stable release — but alas, we'll have to wait a bit longer. Live Updates Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority Remember when Google introduced Live Updates in Android 16 to mimic iPhone-style, omnipresent notifications? Yeah, that too isn't fully available yet. The only working part right now is the live progress bar feature in apps like ride-hailing and food-delivery services. So, you can see exactly where your order is while you impatiently stare at the front door. But the fancier bits — like the persistent iPhone-style chip and lock screen updates that rely on always-on display — are still a few months away. The silver lining is that more app developers will have time to update their apps to support the feature before the full experience rolls out. At least we can hope for that to happen. Desktop mode We've long wanted Google to roll out a Samsung DeX-style desktop mode for a full-fledged PC-like experience using just your phone and an external monitor. And every year, we get teased that it's just around the corner. This year is no different, sadly. Instead of copying Samsung, Google pulled a boss move and partnered with it. The result? A functional, PC-like windowed experience for Android apps, while your phone or tablet remains accessible separately. Our own Mishaal Rahman even put together a detailed guide if you want to dive deeper. The feature will be supported by the Pixel 8 and newer devices, though once it rolls out later this year. Redesigned Google Photos editor Google Photos is already one of the most powerful image editors on smartphones — it's actually surprising how many features Google has packed into such a simple app. However, the app's gotten cluttered over the years as more AI tools were added on top of existing ones. With Android 16, the image editor is getting a major redesign, both in terms of visuals and usability. The interface looks more modern and matches the expressive Material You design. And of course, there are AI-powered suggestions in the form of chips that appear directly on the image, so you don't have to dig through menus. Lock screen customizations Lock screens have become the new playground for self-expression across Android and iOS with flashy images and fancy clock layouts. With Android 16, Google wants to make your lock screen pop with Magic Portraits — with your photos peeking through clover and other fun shapes. They look damn cool when photos lift out of those cutouts using depth information! There's a nice little animation too as you move from the lock screen to the home screen. I've played around with the feature using my own photos, but Joe Maring's Magic Portrait of his dog? That one's adorable to the Pro Max degree — no comparisons. I just can't wait for everyone to get their hands on this and go bonkers with what they can create. Quick Settings redesign Joe Maring / Android Authority The Quick Settings panel is also in for a big revamp in Android 16, in addition to Android getting a fresh coat of paint overall. Mixed tile shapes that don't look jarring, their customizable sizes, and matching sliders for volume and brightness are all coming to your Pixel. Google even updated the status bar icons for battery, Wi-Fi, etc., moving from solid, filled icons to more nuanced designs. And yes, Google borrowed iOS's dual-shade pull-down menu — swipe down from the left for notifications and the right for Quick Settings. But you'll still have the option to stick with the single gesture for both like we do it now. Once again, though, if you just updated your Pixel to Android 16 stable, you won't see any of this yet. When should I expect these features? Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority Google didn't cram all its flashy new features into the first stable Android 16 release. Instead, it's spreading them out across the year and releasing them via Pixel Drops. Many of the features above are part of the Android 16 QPR1 beta that rolled out last month, with the second beta bringing the new desktop mode for you to check out. There's no official timeline yet, but it'll likely be a few months before everything drops. Mishaal predicts an early September release for Android 16 QPR1's general release, which could coincide with the Pixel 10's speculated release. And while a lot of this is missing, sure, there's still plenty to explore in Android 16 as is. You can check out our full review to see how your Pixel is set for a big upgrade already.
Android Authority
11-06-2025
- Android Authority
This small quick settings tweak is low-key my most anticipated Android 16 improvement
Joe Maring / Android Authority Android 16 is shaping up to be the biggest visual update to Google's mobile operating system since the introduction of Material You with Android 12. That release was all about making the experience feel more personal to each user, with dynamic theming that could extract your wallpaper colors and apply them to other parts of the system. There was also a much more playful approach to form and motion across the OS. With its latest design system update, Material 3 Expressive, Google is taking that philosophy one step further, with even bolder colors and shapes, springier animations, and some quirky new typography choices. While many of the upcoming changes in Android 16 feel somewhat superficial, with little practical significance, there are some small tweaks that I think will make a big difference to the way I interact with my Pixel phone. Chief among them is a seemingly minor update to the quick settings panel that sits atop the notification shade. And it's something I've been yearning for ever since the launch of Android 12 back in 2021. What's your most anticipated Android 16 feature? 0 votes Live Updates NaN % Upgraded quick settings NaN % Magic Portrait wallpapers NaN % New visuals and animations NaN % Expanded Find Hub app NaN % Fixing what Android 12 broke As far as I'm concerned, Google perfected the quick settings panel as far back as Android 7.1. Easily accessible toggles debuted with Nougat (7.0), where a single swipe down from the top would reveal five quick settings icons in a single row, with the sixth spot being reserved for a down arrow that revealed expanded settings with more information. Google moved the arrow and replaced it with another toggle in the next point release (7.1). We now had six customizable toggles in a single line, leaving plenty of space below for our all-important notifications. Swipe down again and you'd see nine expanded toggles with information about WiFi networks, connected devices, and so on. Aside from tweaks to the styling, this remained almost unchanged for the next four Android versions (see Android 9 Pie in the image above). Android 11 irked some users when it reduced the number of expanded quick settings from nine to six (to make room for new media controls). But Android 12 is when the biggest change to this feature arrived, and it's hard not to see it as a major misstep from Google. Instead of the 6 quick settings toggles in the notification shade that we'd all gotten used to, we were now greeted by just four extra-wide tiles with text labels. They also took up more vertical space since they were spread across two lines. It seems that Google wanted to make some information more glanceable, such as which Bluetooth device you were connected to. But this wasn't consistently applied, so you'd have tiles such as 'Internet' that only showed your connected network when the quick settings panel was expanded. Other toggles, such as 'Flashlight' and 'Hotspot', were given unnecessary labels even though their utility was obvious from the icon. The on/off status was still conveyed by the color of the tile, as it had been previously. Robert Triggs / Android Authority Like many others, I found this change to be incredibly frustrating. Having access to fewer toggles with a single swipe down was already less convenient, but Google also made changes to how some of these toggles functioned. You could no longer turn WiFi on or off with a single tap — instead, you'd have to open the now combined 'Internet' menu and tap again to enable or disable your connection. Android 12's large tiles was a misstep Android 16 will fix. This is how Android's quick settings have worked for the last four years, at least on a Google Pixel device. Mercifully, Android 16 is set to bring back smaller toggles and give us much more control over the layout of our quick settings. As shown by our own Mishaal Rahman in the video below (an earlier version), it's going to be possible to edit the size of each quick settings tile. If you don't mind the larger 1×2 tiles, you can leave them as they are. Those of us who want smaller 1×1 toggles can shrink them accordingly, on a per-toggle basis. The quick settings panel at the top of the notification shade will still take up two rows, which means we'll be able to have up to eight toggles within easy reach if we make them all 1×1. The best part of this is the ability to mix and match. I can see myself keeping the wide Bluetooth tile so I can easily glance at my connected devices while making most of the other toggles smaller. The 'Flashlight' tile no longer needs to so brazenly announce its presence every time I pull down my quick settings, as if it were begging to be switched on. It can go back to subtly waiting in the wings for that once-in-a-blue-moon occasion when I quickly need to access it. Adding to my delight, Google is also arranging quick settings tiles in neatly organized categories in the editor view. This will make it easier and faster to find the ones you want to use — yet another user-friendly tweak that I can get behind. All in all, I think these quick settings improvements represent some of the most utilitarian quality-of-life changes I've seen in an Android update for quite some time. It's especially welcome since many of the Material 3 Expressive upgrades seem to be focused more on form than function. Quick settings improvements are the most utilitarian quality-of-life changes for some time. The Android platform has always been praised for its personality and customizability, but Google's Pixel software experience tends to be more rigid than what's offered by Samsung and other OEMs. Apple has also closed the gap when it comes to personalization in recent years, with the introduction of tinted app icons, lock screen customization, and a more editable Control Center. So what would otherwise be a fairly minor quick settings tweak represents a big win for the tinkerers out there. With exciting additions such as Live Updates, new motion physics, and bolder UI elements, Android 16 could be Google's most user-friendly OS yet. And thanks to innovative new wallpaper settings, an intriguing new Pixel themes feature, and the aforementioned quick settings changes, our Pixels are also going to be more customizable than ever before.
Phone Arena
03-06-2025
- Business
- Phone Arena
Gmail is getting a visual makeover that might finally make swiping fun again
Google has started rolling out the Material 3 Expressive design update to Gmail on Android. This is one of the first apps to receive the updated look, but the rollout is still limited, so most users haven't received it yet. That includes many Pixel owners like myself, who are still waiting to see the changes in 3 Expressive was officially introduced last month as part of a larger visual overhaul coming to Android. The new design language builds on Material You, with more vibrant colors, smoother animations, and layered UI elements. It's expected to roll out more widely later this year alongside the second Android 16 QPR beta, but Google is already updating some of its own apps in advance. Gmail is among the first to get the new look. As seen in Google's preview and reports from early users, the changes are noticeable but not drastic. The message list now appears on a rounded card-like background, giving the inbox a more modern feel. The search bar, navigation menu button, and account switcher sit on a separate, more colorful background layer. There's also a new animation when swiping on messages, and the "Compose" button is bolder than before. Material 3 Expressive is appearing for some Gmail users. | Image credit —AleksLevet (Reddit) via 9to5Google Material 3 Expressive is appearing for some Gmail users. | Images credit —SparkRadar (Telegram) via Android Authority So far, only a small number of users have received the update. A Nothing Phone user posted a video of the new swipe animation on Reddit, while another user shared screenshots of the refreshed UI on X (formerly Twitter) from what looks like a OnePlus device. Android Authority also pointed to a Telegram user who shared screenshots of actual emails with the new is not the biggest Material 3 update we'll see, but it does mark an early step toward Google's broader design changes. More apps, such as Google Photos and Messages, are expected to follow in the coming we've covered previously, the goal of Material 3 Expressive is to make Android apps feel more dynamic and visually consistent. While Gmail's update is just getting started, it signals where the platform is headed. For now, the rollout appears to be server-side and staggered, so there's no clear timeline for when it will arrive on all devices. If you haven't received the update yet, you're not alone. It may take some time before Material 3 Expressive reaches everyone. Still, it's exciting to see Google begin this new chapter for Android's design and I can't wait to see this new look appear across the apps on my Pixel.
Android Authority
16-05-2025
- Android Authority
Material 3 Expressive isn't even out yet, and it looks like people already love it
Robert Triggs / Android Authority During The Android Show, Google officially lifted the curtain on Material 3 Expressive, the next step in design aesthetics for Android 16. The new look is just a part of Google's initiative to make both Android and Wear OS playful and visually engaging, and even invoke emotions while you use it. For context, the last big design change with Android was about four years ago with Android 12 and Material You. With Material 3 Expressive, it builds on the Material Design foundation and extends upon the original design philosophy. Google also poured a lot of research into this refresh, as it is the result of 46 global studies, hundreds of design variations, and took into account the insights of over 18,000 participants. But did all this research work? Well, we asked readers what they thought, and so far, it looks like it's certainly paying off. What do you think of Google's Material 3 Expressive design for Android? We originally polled readers on their initial impressions on May 13, and we already received over 5,800 votes (and counting!) in just a matter of days. It's pretty clear that many people are excited about Material 3 Expressive. So far, a whopping 56% answered that they're loving it and welcome the changes. About 36% said they will make up their mind after they use it first, and only 8% voted that they like the current design and don't want the changes. Though Google has announced Material 3 Expressive and we've seen a few hints of it in Android 16 Beta 4, don't expect to see it immediately once Android 16 goes public in June. Google plans to introduce Material 3 Expressive first on Pixel devices, which also includes the Pixel Watch. For other OEMs, it will roll out after the Pixel, and we can expect Material 3 Expressive design elements intertwined with the other brands' custom Android skins. There's a lot of new stuff coming in Material 3 Expressive. Some of these new changes include better animations and motion physics, dynamic and personalized color themes, updated typography, new shapes for app icons and other interface elements, and more. System UI aspects are also improved, like the new Quick Settings panel, more blurring effects throughout, and even Live Updates. But it's not all good news. Reader geraldgrow notes that the parts of Material Design that utilize translucent, thin lines, and low contrast text can be hard to see for older people who have difficulty seeing. It's important to make sure that users are still able to control the thickness and contrast for accessibility purposes. Other readers, like gacorek11 and mannyg3rd, aren't big on the new fonts or colors, respectively. For the most part, however, it looks like Material 3 Expressive is resonating well with our readers and fans. We only got a glimpse of what's to come, but if you have a Pixel phone, tablet, or watch, it's coming sooner rather than later. Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at Email our staff at news@ . You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it's your choice.
