TL;DR
- As part of its big Material 3 Expressive overhaul, Google’s been rethinking its approach to the Gemini overlay.
- Instead of just gently sliding onto screen, Google’s been working to give Gemini a little bouncy momentum.
- The latest version of this animation we’ve uncovered is easily the most dynamic yet.
Change is coming to Google’s Android software, and that change’s name is Material 3 Expressive. The company’s latest design language is being implemented across Android apps and the system UI itself, and we’ve been working hard to bring you all the early previews we can manage of these changes as they’re being developed. And today we’re starting off the week with an update on one we’ve already checked in with.
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Modern UIs aren’t static things, and while we’d use words like “rounded” and “high-contrast” to describe components of the Material 3 Expressive look, you’d need to see the system in motion to appreciate another one: “bouncy.”
Earlier this month, we shared a preview of a bouncy new way Google’s Gemini overlay was getting ready to appear on your screen, sliding up from the bottom with some undeniable momentum. Let’s briefly recap: first we have the no-nonsense “smoothly slide up from the bottom” action we currently get from Gemini.
That was a good start, but before Google’s ready to hit “go” on this new behavior for the overlay, the developers have a few more tweaks to make.
For this, we’re looking at version 16.28.59.sa.arm64 beta of the Google Android app. This change isn’t yet user-visible, but if and when Google flips the switch, rather than following the overlay’s main input bar straight up, this new animation will have the chips for additional options now swing into place above the bar with a little more flair.
That could really help to make those selections stand out, and encourage users to interact with them — as still a quite new tool, decisions like that are going to be important if Google wants everyone getting comfortable with all the different things Gemini’s capable of doing.
Right now, Google may still be feeling out exactly how it wants the overlay to look and behave, so we wouldn’t take any of these finds as a certainty. But that said, it feels like there’s a clear momentum to the changes we’ve been uncovering, and it seems quite likely we’ll continue to see development heading in a similar direction.
