Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google is working on a new ‘expressive’ version of Material Design, which is expected to be revealed at Google I/O 2025 in the coming weeks.
- We’ve spotted and activated this new expressive theme in the Google Services settings page within Android settings.
- This joins the growing list of apps getting ready to adopt the upcoming Material 3 Expressive theme after its launch.
Over the months, we’ve spotted plenty of clues indicating that Google is working on a new ‘expressive’ version of Material Design. We’ve also surfaced the big UI overhaul for Android as a whole and even the big redesign of Android’s Settings app, all in line with the new Material 3 Expressive theme. As part of the change, we’ve now spotted the ‘expressive’ redesign of the Google Play settings, joining the growing list of apps that will adopt the new design language.
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.
With Google Play Services v25.17.31, we managed to activate the upcoming Expressive design UI elements within Google Services settings. These screenshots show what Android will look like in the future, possibly with Android 16 QPR 1 or even Android 17.
AssembleDebug / Android Authority
As you can see, there are many prominent switches with an X or checkmark icon in the handle. Settings entries are also placed in more visually distinct cards, and bold is generously used in many places.
AssembleDebug / Android Authority
Google is also using the Google Sans Flex font in many places in this UI.
AssembleDebug / Android Authority
Despite the design refresh, not every page within Google Play Settings will look like this. Some sub-pages, like Connected apps and Play Games, use a webview, and so it’s not possible to theme them until Google also themes the webpages the webviews are pointed at.
AssembleDebug / Android Authority
Once again, note that this ‘Expressive’ design isn’t live yet. We don’t know when Google will go live with this redesign. However, we’ve spotted clues that suggest Google plans to introduce a new ‘expressive’ version of Material Design at Google I/O this month. The expressive redesign of all Google apps can safely be presumed to follow after the design is introduced.
