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Google Apps in Android 12 Getting Material You Design

By Laura Tucker
Material You Default Apps Featured

We spend so much time on our smartphones and other mobile devices that it can be exciting when they receive a new look. Android users are going to see default Google apps in a whole new way. Google’s Material You design will be coming to the Android 12 Beta 5 default Google apps.

Google’s Material You Design

Google’s “Material You” was initially announced last May. It includes larger buttons, smoother animations, and colors that change to match your device’s theme. The plan is to apply those changes across all Google devices, though the changes will differ across various devices and brands.

Material You Default Apps Theme

When you change your wallpaper, Material You will change as well to reflect that change. The primary and secondary colors will be pulled from your wallpaper, and you’ll see them reflected elsewhere on your device.

This change will affect widgets as well. As you drag a widget to different places on your screen, it will assume different colors. The downside is that to get big, color-changing buttons, you’ll have less of them on your screen.

Material You Makes Changes to Default Apps in Android 12 Beta

As all the Material You changes roll out to Android, the default Google apps are now receiving a facelift. This includes the Clock, Calculator, Gmail, Google Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets and Slides, and Meet.

While the design was previously known as Google Material, you’ll now have your choice of Material You or Dynamic Color. No matter what your wallpaper looks like, the Google apps will now match it as well when you use Dynamic Color. It uses AI and machine learning to choose the colors. Pre-existing color schemes will not be affected.

Material You Default Apps Dynamic Color

This won’t be just for Android apps, either – it will also eventually include Chromebook apps. Meet will change on September 19, and Google Calendar one day later. The rest of the apps have already been changed.

For now, the changes will be just for Android 12 and Pixel devices. Material You will be available to all Google Workspace, G-Suite Basics, and Business users, as well as users with personal Google accounts.

Read on to find the best Google Docs templates to organize your life and more about the announced changes to Android 12.

Image Credit: Google IO 2021 keynote in 16 minutes and Google Workspace Updates

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Laura Tucker Avatar
Laura Tucker
Laura has spent more than 20 years writing news, reviews, and op-eds, with the majority of those years as an editor as well. She has exclusively used Apple products for the past 35 years. In addition to writing and editing at MTE, she also runs the site’s sponsored review program.

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