Google Drive has a new widget to adorn your tablet’s home screen
This year, Google has spent considerable time overhauling its apps with an Android 12 Material You redesign.Google Keep on Wear OSwas updated with a fresh new design this week, and other apps likeGoogle Translate,Play Books, and more were updated with Material You widgets earlier this year. Google Drive is the newest app the company has improved with a new circular widget capable of dynamic theming, but the changes are only visible on tablets for now.
On Android phones, Google Drive offers two widgets — one with a list of your most recent documents and another flower-shaped (or x-shaped) one with quick access to shortcuts for document search, file upload, new document creation, and the camera. On tablets, Drive has one additional horizontal bar widget with the same shortcuts.9to5Googlereports version 2.22.357.1 of the app packs a fourth circular widget for tablets based on the Material You design.
The new circular widget positions six circular shortcut buttons around a Drive icon, all nestled inside a larger placeholder circle. The layout may remind you of a telephone with a rotary dial. New Drive quick actions in this widget include buttons to open a new spreadsheet in Sheets or a presentation in Slides. The widget appears exclusive to tablets because we aren’t seeing it on our smartphones despite running the same app version.
Besides Drive, many other Google apps likeWalletare hopping on the Material You design bandwagon ahead of thePixel 7 seriesandPixel Watchlaunch in October. TheGoogle Play systemhas also been updated, and it’s about time Google treated all its apps to Material You goodness. The design language was introduced withAndroid 12last year, and many apps have been slow to adapt to the guidelines.
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