With the arrival of Google’s most recent design language for Android last year alongside the launch of Lollipop, there have been a number of changes aesthetically which now ooze material design on more than a few layers. This isn’t just limited to apps either, as Google has implemented much of the material design across the user interface of Android, and across their various other services like Maps, Search, and others. This includes the interfaces on the web for both desktop and mobile. Yes, it would seem that Google is quite a lot more invested in beautification of all of their products, and the most recent visual tweaks to showcase this practice comes in the form of the mobile search results for apps.
Pulling up search on the mobile web by opening up Chrome or by simply heading to the search bar from Google Now and entering in any number of various app categories (like music apps, puzzle games, weather apps etc.) pulls up a list of results that look almost akin to the card-based layout of app results you see in the Play Store app, but laden with splashes of color instead of a simple white block. Not unsurprisingly, tapping on any of the icons transports you to the Play Store listing for that app so you can readily download and install it if you wish. Nothing new about that. The design of the layout however, is much more colorful and lively which sort of meshes better with Google’s theme of material design which boasts lots of colors. What’s more, the colors of the blocks generally tend to match at least part of the color from the app icon.
When pulling up apps from search this new layout will show you a preconfigured number of app results, but you can tap the more apps button to shift the layout into an expanded, scrollable list with more results. It’s unclear if everyone is able to see this layout at the moment or whether Google is pushing this new look in a slow roll out, but we were able to personally recreate it on our own device so it likely isn’t a small batch roll out like Google does with some things. It’s also been noted that this only seems to be appearing on the Android version of mobile search, so Google may be looking to push this to Android devices first and other mobile platforms like iOS later on.
