Gboard is getting a new design featuring redesigned keys. Moreover, Google’s new Material You guidelines have been radically overhauled.
The Material You guidelines will extend to Android 12. They will also encompass several other parts of the Google ecosystem.
They bring a much-needed facelift to Material Design and enable customizability, and design flexibility. Gboard is one of the several Google apps that are slated to get facelifts based on some of these new features.
Google rolling out a new Gboard design
Gboard was recently made available on Wear OS smartwatches. XDA Developers discovered a new UI revamp for Gboard app, which includes the ability to automatically sync with the wallpaper’s colors.
Gboard has started officially rolling out some of these design changes. However, it is worth mentioning here that these changes aren’t notable.
The ?123 key did not have an outline earlier and the Enter key was embedded in a rounded rectangle. Both keys now adopt a pill shape as part of the new design.
Moreover, this new design also covers the spacebar. Pill shapes are quite popular throughout the new stock Android UI and they look even better here.
This was originally spotted on a ZenFone 8 running Android 11 OS. This new design isn’t exclusively available for users running the Android 12 beta. Aside from that, it is not exclusive to those using Pixel devices.
Gboard new design availability and other updates
Users can get the new design, which features pill-shaped keys for the Enter and ?123 keys now. According to WCCFTech, Google could introduce a more drastic Gboard design in the future.
In addition to that, the site suggests that the new design could be based on the Material You design. It is also likely to offer similar customization that the latest Android version offer.
Regrettably, you cannot do much at the moment if you want to check out the new design since this is an A/B rollout. You can head to the Google Play Store and download the latest version of Gboard for better chances.
The biggest change in the new design has to do with the Gboard and themes featuring lighter shades of color, 9To5Google noted. This includes the background as well as the keys themselves.
This subtle design touch is less overwhelming. It is probably part of the broader Android 12 revamp.
Gboard is further revamping the backspace, return, period, emoji/comma, ?123, and the caps lock keys.
These changes are yet to be widely rolled out. However, the Gboard redesign is expected to go live as the beta progresses.