Android 16 is bringing a big redesign in the form of Material 3 Expressive, and while the update is still a little ways away, Google is already testing and rolling out the fresh new look to some of its apps. Let’s take a look at what the future holds.
Now, as you would hope, a lot of the same design elements from Material 3 Expressive can be seen across Google’s apps. Heavily rounded corners are much more prevalent, animations are springier, buttons grow to show emphasis, large areas are displayed as cards, and colors are more vibrant. Check out the screenshots below to see a handful of Google apps get a glow-up.
Gmail
These screenshots are from Gmail app version 2025.05.11.
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Google Messages
These screenshots are from the beta version 20250528_00_RC00 and beta version 20250602_05_RC00 of Google Messages.
Google Calendar
These screenshots are from an APK teardown of version 2025.19.0-757507108-release of Google Calendar.
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Phone by Google
These screenshots are from an APK teardown of the Phone by Google app version 177.0.763181107-publicbeta-pixel2024.
Google Photos
These screenshots are from Google Photos version 7.30.
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There’s a nice cohesiveness to all of the apps, and this isn’t the final version for any of them yet. Google is still perfecting the designs ahead of the Android 16 launch. Personally, I’m really liking what I see so far, both in screenshots and the Android 16 beta. The heavily rounded corners everywhere work well with the rounded corners of a Pixel phone. It’s fitting that the design meshes so well with Pixel phones, because they’re the only ones likely to get the full Material Expressive effect.
Source: Android Police, Android Authority (1, 2, 3), 9to5Google (1, 2, 3)
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