One of the key changes here is the slightly elongated bottom bar with highlights surrounding the tab you’re in. While some of the other elements have received a Material You upgrade, the search bar on top of the ‘Explore’ still uses the old rectangular shape. 9to5Google notes that the new update doesn’t bring any changes to the ‘Library’ tab.
Google recently updated apps like Photos and Duo with the Material You redesign
Another major inclusion here is Dynamic Color for Pixel phones with Android 12. Screenshots show a hue of green to most UI elements which is a key characteristic of the new theming system. These are not major changes by any stretch, though it shows how committed Google is to bringing uniformity across its apps. These changes were first spotted on Google Podcasts beta v 12.37. However, the update is yet to widely roll out to devices. Google has brought Material You to a handful of apps so far. More recently, the Google Photos app got the redesign, although it was missing Dynamic Color, indicating that the redesign is still in progress. Meanwhile, Google apps like Camera, Phone, Clock, Contacts, and several others have already received the new redesign. However, the company is yet to finish rolling out Material You to all Google apps. Material You brings a whole new level of customization to the Android experience. The design philosophy will be prominent across Android 12. One of the more exciting aspects of Material You is Dynamic Color. With this feature, UI elements automatically adapt to the color of the phone wallpaper. This even extends to some apps on your phone, making this a complete visual overhaul of Android. Expectedly, Android 12 also has a ton of other new features to complement the redesign, including built-in security enhancements. The new Android version introduces something known as Android Private Compute Core. Google describes this as an open-source environment that is “isolated” from apps and the rest of the operating system. The new Private Compute Core also deals with features such as Live Caption, Now Playing, and Smart Reply.
