Latest news with #UI
Phone Arena
5 hours ago
- Business
- Phone Arena
Check out how Google plans on improving the native Google Phone app for Android
The first thing you might notice is that the name of the person who is calling you or you're calling appears larger on the top of the display (that person and his/her phone number need to be in your Contacts app) and the caller photos will also be larger. The keypad, mute, speaker, and more buttons are no longer round but are oval. When tapped, these buttons change shapes. The answer call button remains a circle. The new look for the Phone by Google Android app. | Image credit-Android Authority Google has removed the "Call from" text that appears on the top of the screen when there is an incoming phone call. After you answer a call, the phone number of the other party will remain on the display, unlike the current design that shows the number replaced by the length of the call. With the redesign, the time of the call is moved to the top of the screen. Also added is a new animation showing the profile picture for the incoming caller. The current look for the Phone by Google Android app. | Image credit-Android Authority This new look shouldn't be surprising since Google loves making changes to its native Android apps every now and then. The changes made aren't earth-shattering but users might find it easier to read the name of the person calling them with the larger-sized text being used. The larger pill-shaped end button should be easier to press when your fingers are fumbling for the red end button and you're having trouble tapping it cleanly. This is what Google is all about. Redesigns to apps that seem minor might actually improve an Android user's experience with the platform.
Android Authority
3 days ago
- Business
- Android Authority
Google Phone's incoming call screen could get a facelift you can choose (APK teardown)
Aamir Siddiqui / Android Authority TL;DR Google is testing two interfaces for the incoming call screen in the Phone app. Users may be able to choose between a pill-based horizontal swipe UI or an iPhone-like single-tap UI for answering/declining calls. However, users may not have the choice to retain the current vertical swipe UI, which is a shame. Google has been testing a redesign of the Phone app for a while now, primarily focusing on how users answer or decline calls. Back in September 2024, we spotted Google working to abandon the swipe actions for incoming calls in favor of dedicated accept and decline buttons, similar to the iPhone. More recently, in March 2025, we spotted Google testing yet another new pill-based UI for left-right swipe gestures. Google doesn't seem to have made up its mind on which UI to go with, and that's great for users, as it seems it could give them a choice between the two. Interestingly, this choice could co-exist alongside the Phone app's Material 3 Expressive redesign. 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. In the latest Phone by Google app v177.0.763181107 beta release, strings indicate that users can choose between the horizontal swipe gesture and the single-tap buttons on the incoming call screen. Code Copy Text answer_method_preference_list_key Incoming call gesture Horizontal swipe Single tap While we couldn't activate the current iteration of the new UIs right away, we have previously seen both of them. For a recap, this is what the current incoming call UI looks like in the Google Phone app: For incoming calls, you get a single button, which you can swipe up to answer the call or swipe down to reject the call. The upcoming single-tap button layout for the incoming call UI will possibly look like this: This layout is similar to the incoming calls UI on the Phone app on iPhones currently on iOS 18, but OEMs like Samsung swap the button position on Galaxy phones running One UI. You can see both in the images below: Incoming calls UI on the iOS 18.1 Phone app on Apple iPhones Incoming calls UI on the Samsung Phone app on Samsung Galaxy phones The second choice that users could get is this pill-based UI for the left and right swipe gestures: When the call arrives, the Decline text is colored red and the Answer text is colored green, while the phone button in the centre animates to showcase a phone ring. The text changes to black color in a second once the animation is done, but the colors can be transitioned back into once again when you swipe right to answer the call or swipe left to reject the call. You can see the animation in this video below: Either option will require retraining muscle memory for Google Phone app users, though users switching from iPhone to Android will welcome the iPhone-like single-tap UI. Since Google seems to be giving users the choice, nothing is stopping the company from keeping the existing vertical swipe and offering it as a choice, too. We hope the company considers this if it indeed is going ahead with the incoming call UI refresh. We don't know if Google will do so, and we'll keep you updated when we learn 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.
Android Authority
3 days ago
- Business
- Android Authority
First look: Google's Phone app is getting a tasty Android 16 redesign (APK teardown)
Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR An Android Authority teardown has revealed Material 3 Expressive design tweaks coming to Google's Phone app. The visual tweaks currently apply to the incoming call and in-call menus. This comes after we discovered visual changes coming to several other Google apps as well. Google is working on a visual overhaul of Android 16, using its Material 3 Expressive design. We've already spotted a few Google apps with similar tweaks, and we've now uncovered a major overhaul of Google's Phone app. 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 cracked open the Phone by Google app (version 177.0.763181107-publicbeta-pixel2024) and enabled the app's redesign. The visual tweaks apply to the incoming call and in-call menus. Check out the gallery below for a comparison. New UI New UI New UI New UI New UI Old UI Old UI Old UI Old UI Old UI The redesigned screens reflect the Material 3 Expressive style, featuring much larger contact names and caller photos. The redesigned app mostly eliminates simple circular buttons too in favor of larger, oval-shaped buttons that change shape when pressed. The answer call button still has the same circular icon, though, but the end call button is much larger and pill-shaped. There are several other smaller tweaks too. These include the omitted 'call from' text on the incoming call screen, the phone number being shown after you answer the call, and the redesigned 'more' menu in line with Material 3 Expressive. The Google Phone app also offers a little animation for your incoming caller's profile picture before you answer the call. Check out a slowed-down version of this and other app animations below. These Google Phone tweaks also come after we discovered Material 3 Expressive changes coming to the Google One, Google Meet, and Google TV apps. We expect plenty more Google apps to get visual changes in the coming months. In any event, we're glad to see Google making progress on redesigning its apps. But you won't necessarily need Android 16 to see these overhauled apps, as we're expecting these app redesigns to be available on earlier Android versions too. 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
5 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Moscow student hits the right notes
May 28—MOSCOW — Paradise Creek Regional High School principal Brian Smith pushed Stormy Bymers Blodgett to do more because he knew she could handle it. "Stormy never, ever quits," Smith said. Her tenacity, he said, is why she was able to complete her courses at PCRHS, perform in the Moscow High School and University of Idaho bands, work full-time jobs and graduate on time. The road to her graduation, which takes place June 4, was not an easy one. Bymers Blodgett was supposed to attend Moscow High School, but the large class sizes and the difficulties of online classes during the COVID-19 pandemic made learning a struggle for her. A family member suggested she apply to PCRHS. Where Moscow High School can have classes with up to 30 students, courses at PCRHS often have fewer than 20 and sometimes as little as two. Her graduating class will have 11 students. With the smaller classes, teachers can provide more individual attention to students, Bymers Blodgett said. "They can kind of help you more if you're struggling," she said. Her grades improved, and she was able to take a variety of classes like journalism, entomology and health. Music remained her passion, however. She continued performing with the Moscow High School concert band and eventually learned how to play a dozen instruments. "If you know one instrument, you can slowly start learning more," she said. Seeing her potential, PCRHS asked Bymers Blodgett to be the first student to participate in the school's new partnership with UI's Lionel Hampton School of Music. As part of that program, she began taking dual credits as a junior and senior. She participated in UI's jazz choir program, the Vandal Marching Band and the UI concert band.
Android Authority
6 days ago
- Android Authority
Google's most important new app may finally be getting tablet friendly (APK teardown)
Ryan Haines / Android Authority TL;DR Currently, Gemini on tablets and foldables uses the same interface as phones. Google appears to be working on a new UI that takes better advantage of bigger screens. That involves adding a side menu, which can always be collapsed for more space. It's been just about one week since Google started sharing all its I/O 2025 news, and this year that was absolutely dominated by all things AI. We see the company's AI efforts front-and-center in everything from the new Flow moviemaking app to Search's new Try It On tool for previewing fits. But for all the hot new launches, Gemini is still the nexus of Google's AI world, and right now we're taking a look at how using it could soon be much nicer on Android's largest screens. 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. Beyond just tablets, foldable Android phones with big inner screens are becoming increasingly popular, and we love it when apps are optimized to make the most of screen real estate. Right now, using Gemini on a device like one of those results in an experience that's basically the same as we see on a phone: While that's perfectly workable, it's also far from optimized, and it doesn't take much of a design instinct to feel that we're missing out on something as a result of all the white space we get with this kind of landscape layout. Thankfully, Google seems interested in doing something about just that. Digging through version beta of the Google app, we've been able to activate a still-not-yet-publicly-facing revision to Gemini's interface that now feels much more at home on bigger screens: The ability to access the side menu through that hamburger button feels just like Gemini on the web, and it turns out that might be all we need for the AI bot to fit in on a tablet-sized display. If you ever do want Gemini text using as much of your screen as possible, you can always just tap that button to collapse the side menu, reverting to much like we have with the existing interface. But considering how convenient the side bar makes things like accessing your past Gemini queries, we might just end up leaving that open. There's no telling when Google might feel like introducing this change publicly, or if the company may further revise its approach before this tablet view is ready. We'll keep you updated with anything new we're able to uncover. 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.
