Material You is already here with a Contacts makeover
The wait for Android 12’s official release is still ongoing, with us being a beta or so away. However, the release is drawing closer, and we're already starting to see the effects of Android’s upcoming makeover.
A few apps are already starting to sport some minor Material You UI touch-ups. Currently, these include Chrome and the Camera. And today, it's the turn of Contacts. With the newest update to the Contacts app, there are some automatic themes that have been included, and you can start taking advantage of the new, fresh look even if you have Android 11.
Contacts is also the first app to officially receive its new look. This includes theme support and the iconic rounded edges through the UI. If you're already running the beta version of Android 12, which you can get on your phone through an APK, you'll already start to see an effect of the Material You feature in your Contacts. Material You will already start pulling from your wallpaper and changing the colors of everything, from letters to icons, when displaying contacts information.
The search bar will also display the rounded edges, while a squircle replaces the circular FAB. Your account name will also be displayed at the top, which is a useful feature so that you can know which list of contacts is loaded.
Some of these new elements are even translating to Android 11. Unfortunately, the accent colour will still default to the usual sky blue, but the rounded edges and the squircle will be visible.
This is also not like most of Google’s usual update changes that occur server-side. It is available in the current beta version of Android 12.3.5 that is coming to users via the Play Store now.
Closing words
With Android 12 in the last few beta versions of testing, we are already getting to experience some of the new features, even in Android 11! The Material You promises to bring some stunning visual elements. We are excited to start seeing a few of those being implemented in apps such as Chrome, Camera and now Contacts.
This is how you can tell a software or technology has matured and there are really no meaningful improvements to be made anymore.
Pretty much for both it’s focusing on design tweaks – oooh the icons are rounded, the app animations fade in, the bezels on the screen are 1 mm smaller, the position of the camera is offset to the right instead of it being on the left.
For me, who cares. I would like meaningful improvements to the software, like fine tuned firewall controls, fine tuned permission controls long term support for the OS beyond maybe 3 years of security updates. For the hardware how about a return to easily replaceable batteries.
For the average user (e.g. not gamers) you don’t need to get a phone every 2-4 years anymore. The chips are fast enough for most needs. Just like PC’s – why does the average user need the latest chip and graphics card when all they do is surf the internet, watch videos and do some office applications.
All this Master of the Obvious, Everyone’s Inside My Head stuff. Basic composition skills would help the disjoint style along with finding some interesting Android features to tout.
‘Cept phones aren’t interesting, they’re commodities. It’s not like the vast majority of users could identify these ever changing themes close to accurately or even care.
Article after article about random upcoming Android features, most of which could be condensed and summarised into one or two articles. Can I propose some editorialising here?
I don’t see any difference between that and telling us one thing at a time what the unreleased and as yet Windows 11 will or will not do. The site is about tech news, it is not a user manual. Authors need to find things to write about. You would not get your news as frequently or as ‘fresh’ if they waited and summarized.