While Search results and the Discover feed are visually tweaked from time to time, other parts of the Google app are often slow to change. Fortunately, Google is now working on a Material You redesign of the Search app.

About APK Insight: In this “APK Insight” post, we’ve decompiled the latest version of an application that Google uploaded to the Play Store. When we decompile these files (called APKs, in the case of Android apps), we’re able to see various lines of code within that hint at possible future features. Keep in mind that Google may or may not ever ship these features, and our interpretation of what they are may be imperfect. We’ll try to enable those that are closer to being finished, however, to show you how they’ll look in case that they do ship. With that in mind, read on.

It starts with a Material You bottom bar that uses pill-shaped indicators to note what tab you’re currently viewing. However, this is not the tall variant and is closer to the previous design. Some apps have stuck with the previous height, like Google Maps and Gmail before it removed text labels (as part of having the bottom bar appear more often).

It’s possible that this will be updated before this Material You redesign rolls out. Another thing that will hopefully change is Dynamic Color, which is something missing from this iteration we enabled. As such, the accent color is blue.

The other big place Material You makes an appearance is Google app settings, which are different from Assistant’s. We see that it’s modeled after system Settings with space for a larger header, pill-shaped search bar with greater emphasis, and better spacing for the menu below. We also get useful descriptions for each item so users don’t have to hunt-and-peck.

Also notable in settings is the use of the M3-style toggle switches. This is the first time it’s been adopted by a Google app.

This Material You redesign is still in-development and it might be sometime before Google makes it widely available. Of course, it’s better late than never for such a critical app.

Thanks to JEB Decompiler, from which some APK Insight teardowns benefit.

Dylan Roussel contributed to this article.