Google Fi’s subtle new Material You redesign is starting to land
You should already knowwhat Google Fi is, but whether you’re a subscriber to Google’s MVNO service or not, its Android companion app is finally catching up to other Google apps with its own Material You layout. It’s not a total redesign (if that’s what you were hoping for), with the app merely picking up support for dynamic color theming and small changes to the navigation bar interface.
The change was first spotted by9to5Googleand appears to be very early in its rollout. Thiscouldbe part of a limited soak test, as there are basically no other public reports for the new layout, or it could just be so minor that most people with the tweak aren’t noticing.
Left: Old UI.Right: New UI (image via 9to5Google).
It’s tough to tell with the limited examples available, but the changes appear pretty mild. As you can see above, dynamic color tints the icons in the navigation bar as well as colored text and icons in other parts of the app and may also affect content graphics. Avatars and device icons are also reportedly tinted to match, though there aren’t any examples to show. The navigation bar may be slightly taller and now outlines the icon for the selected tab with a Material You-style pill.
The rollout of the change appears to be limited. 9to5 notes that it was available on v60 of the app, but it is not live on any of our devices, even with the required version. Changes like these can sometimes take the form of remotely-triggered “feature flags,” and Google may have limited the deployment for the time being as part of a staggered release.
Last year Google Fiadded support for end-to-end encryptionon “eligible” calls (between Google Fi subscribers when using the Google dialer). Earlier this month, Googlecut the prices for some of its unlimited plans, reducing them by $5-10 a month. This had the unusual effect of making a three-line Simply Unlimited planslightlycheaper than either the two- or four-line plans, but Google’s gonna Google.
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