Summary
- Android 12 update brought Material You design, now refined to a cohesive UI.Google is now working on animations to level the playing field with Apple’s iOS.
- Apple-inspired iOS 18 animations were just seen in Gemini, with color tweaks anda new ripple effect.
- New animations in Gemini are still in development, but they bring personality and refinement to the interface.
Android 12 was a major visual update for Google’s operating system, bringing in a whole new design language called Material You, which matched UI colors to . It has undergone significant refinement in subsequent versions and now features a cohesive UI. However, Android is constantly compared to Apple’s iOS and we’ve often seen either side mimic features and changes introduced on the other. Recently, Apple seems to have inspired Google with iOS 18 animations and we now have evidence suggesting Gemini animations could soon change to resemble those for Apple Intelligence.
Related
Android clearly inspired Apple’s newest iOS 18 features
At WWDC, Apple announced customization features that borrow heavily from Android
While picking the superior OS is down to personal preference, we certainly don’t mind Apple and Google borrowing animations from each other. Frankly, we spent some time hands-on with Apple Intelligence and were impressed by its deep integration with iOS, even though a few functional bits need more polish. The launch animation plays a key role here, and reputable Google app researcher @AssembleDebug from X (formerly Twitter) told Android Authority of similar animations for Gemini on Android.
A new graphic hidden in version 15.31.29.29 of the Google app beta is damning evidence that Gemini could soon feature a glow surrounding the prompt box pop-up as soon as it is summoned. Google’s implementation bears a striking similarity to Apple’s Siri summon UI in iOS 18.1, but Google has swapped the golden-yellow hue for blue and purple shades which match the rest of Gemini’s UI.
New animations look crisp, but might just be a test
Google is also changing the animation which triggers as soon as you summon Gemini within an app. This time, it uses the entire screen, like the oneforApple Intelligence. As the Gemini prompt box and controls slide into view from the lower edge of the screen, it pushes out a reddish-maroon pulse upwards and radially outwards like a wave, which terminates when it reaches the edges of the display.
These animations might seem like a small component changing in Gemini when the app has significantly bigger fish to fry in the functionality department, but take these animations away and you’ll suddenly find your Android device lacking personality and refinement. We love these new iOS-like changes but AssembleDebug says they are still in development. So there’s no telling when we might get to see it in a Gemini app update.
