Latest news with #videoPlayer
Android Authority
22-07-2025
- Android Authority
Google Photos starts rolling out the new look for its video player
Joe Maring / Android Authority TL;DR Google has started rolling out a new update to its Photos app, which includes a new video player UI. Additionally, the company has changed up its setup UI for new Photos users. These updates are part of Google's gradual rollout of its Material 3 Expressive redesign. Google has started rolling out some of its visual changes to the Photos app, which include a new video player progress bar with larger controls. While we spotted a few of the upcoming changes in an APK teardown back in June, users can now get access to the new UI by updating their Google Photos app to the latest version. The rollout was initially tipped by users in the Gapps Leaks Telegram group and we've since confirmed it by updating the app on our own devices. The video player now has a larger progress bar, along with a vertical indicator for easy navigation through the timeline. The volume button now sits above the progress bar. Rather than using the pause button in the center of the screen, there's a new pause button above the progress bar. Old player New player Fast forward indicator But instead of holding down on the left or right side of the video to adjust video playback speed and fast forward and rewind, the updated player allows you to double tap on the left or right of the video to skip ahead or rewind by five seconds. With additional taps, you can skip ahead or rewind further, with five seconds added per tap. Google has also tweaked the onboarding screen, making the user's profile picture and name more prominent. While this aligns with Google's Material Expressive 3 redesign, it lacks the useful mobile data toggle that we found nifty in our April onboarding UI teardown. Old New While there's something to be said for incremental changes, we're hoping that Google will continue to make more substantive updates to the app. I personally find the ability to share Google Photos albums with a QR code quite nice. Google is currently working on a bunch of redesigned elements for other apps which embrace the Material 3 Expressive design language. These include updates to Gmail, Phone, Meet, and plenty more. 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.
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
20-06-2025
- Android Authority
Google Drive for Android gets a video player upgrade and better upload tools
Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR Google Drive for Android now has a redesigned video player with easier-to-use playback controls. The mobile upload process has also been improved with file renaming, folder selection, and clearer progress tracking. Both features are now rolling out to all Google Workspace and personal Drive users. Google has been steadily modernizing its main storage app. The latest Google Drive for Android updates focus on making videos easier to watch and files easier to upload. According to Google's Workspace Updates blog, the Android app is finally getting the same revamped video player that rolled out on the web last year. The refreshed design moves playback controls below the video rather than overlaying them, making them easier to see and use. It also includes quick access to captions, playback speed, and full-screen mode. We first previewed the Android version of this player back in March, when code in a Drive app teardown hinted at the visual overhaul. At the time, the updated layout could be manually enabled but hadn't yet rolled out to users. Google Drive's mobile upload experience is also getting a facelift. You can now rename files and select their destination folder as soon as you hit upload, and a new progress bar gives a clearer view of how much remains. There's also an Upload tab where you can keep track of pending and recently completed uploads. Both changes have fully rolled out to all Workspace customers and personal Google accounts. 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.
Android Authority
05-06-2025
- Business
- Android Authority
Google Photos is next for an Expressive overhaul, but is it actually better? (APK teardown)
Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR An Android Authority teardown has revealed a couple of key visual changes coming to the Google Photos app. It looks like the app will get a new video player featuring larger controls and gestures to rewind and fast-forward. The app could also get an overhauled search results page, but I'm not completely sold on this change. Google is working on wide-spanning visual changes to Android 16 using its Material 3 Expressive style. We've since discovered that several Google apps are getting these tweaks. Now, it looks like Google Photos is getting a couple of visual updates as well. Authority Insights story on Android Authority. Discover You're reading anstory on Android Authority. Discover Authority Insights for more exclusive reports, app teardowns, leaks, and in-depth tech coverage you won't find anywhere else. An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release. We conducted a teardown of the latest version of the Google Photos app (version 7.32.0.765953717) and enabled a couple of redesigned UI elements. Perhaps the most notable change is the overhauled video player, as seen below. Old player New player Fast-forward gesture in new player The most prominent change is the larger player timeline, complete with a vertical line for a scrubbing icon. The video duration now appears above the timeline, too, along with the pause and volume controls. Another notable change is that the new video player now displays the file's time and date at the top of the page, while the cast icon has disappeared. We've also got an Add to button at the bottom, alongside the existing Share, Edit, and Trash buttons. One more nifty addition to the new Google Photos video player UI is the ability to hold on the left or right sides of the video to rewind or fast-forward, respectively. You can check this out in the third image above, which shows a 2x alert at the top of the screen. These aren't the only UI changes we've spotted in Google Photos. The company is also working on a redesigned search results page. You can view the old and new pages below. Old UI New UI The new search results page brings the search bar to the bottom of the screen while also grouping the 'best match' items in a square gallery. This gallery takes up just over half of the screen, with the rest of the screen showing recent matches by date (e.g. April 3, January 26). However, you can tap the last image in this square gallery to reveal an expanded gallery view. By contrast, the current Google Photos search results page shows all matches in one big gallery while letting you switch between Most recent and Best match. The current gallery clearly shows far more matches at once from the get-go compared to the new UI. This suggests that you'll find your desired results more quickly in the current UI. This isn't the first time we discovered a redesigned Google Photos video player. We uncovered a redesign back in October 2024, but that tweaked player wasn't actually released. Therefore, there's no guarantee that this most recent visual overhaul will see the light of day, either. But it certainly seems in line with Google's Material 3 Expressive stylings, so we're optimistic about a wide release at some point. This isn't the only Google app slated to receive a visual overhaul for Android 16. We've also uncovered upcoming design changes for apps like Gmail, the Phone app, and Google One. 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.
