Fi’s Material You changes are so small, you might not notice them.
You should already know what Google Fi is, but whether you’re a subscriber to Google’s MVNO service or not, its Android companion app is finally catching up to other Google apps with its own Material You layout. It’s not a total redesign (if that’s what you were hoping for), with the app merely picking up support for dynamic color theming and small changes to the navigation bar interface.
The change was first spotted by 9to5Google and appears to be very early in its rollout. This could be part of a limited soak test, as there are basically no other public reports for the new layout, or it could just be so minor that most people with the tweak aren’t noticing.
Left: Old UI. Right: New UI (image via 9to5Google).
It’s tough to tell with the limited examples available, but the changes appear pretty mild. As you can see above, dynamic color tints the icons in the navigation bar as well as colored text and icons in other parts of the app and may also affect content graphics. Avatars and device icons are also reportedly tinted to match, though there aren’t any examples to show. The navigation bar may be slightly taller and now outlines the icon for the selected tab with a Material You-style pill.
The rollout of the change appears to be limited. 9to5 notes that it was available on v60 of the app, but it is not live on any of our devices, even with the required version. Changes like these can sometimes take the form of remotely-triggered “feature flags,” and Google may have limited the deployment for the time being as part of a staggered release.
Last year Google Fi added support for end-to-end encryption on “eligible” calls (between Google Fi subscribers when using the Google dialer). Earlier this month, Google cut the prices for some of its unlimited plans, reducing them by $5-10 a month. This had the unusual effect of making a three-line Simply Unlimited plan slightly cheaper than either the two- or four-line plans, but Google’s gonna Google.
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