So I know we've seen something really interesting in the last couple of days. Google, basically, in sort of googly fashion, I guess, inadvertently leaked. a lot of the material-free expressive design, some of the concepts, some of the theories behind it.
I want to hear your thoughts on this, because I know you have strong opinions on user interface design anyway, and I know that you love material design in general, but tell me what you think so far, and then let's get into the details and discuss what was discussed effectively. So, yeah, what we got specifically was the research that went into Material Tree Expressive. It's Google. They said that around 2022.
they started asking the question why all material apps look the same. And from there, they decided to make something that's more expressive at a high level. So what we have is the research. We don't have the components yet. We don't know. We don't have the updated. components yet we just have the thinking but as part of this leaked blog post that went up very briefly but got saved nonetheless
We have some vendors showing off possible designs. We have the philosophy going in. And basically, it's this... I think that what Google is at a very high level, I think. Google is hoping for less. Uniformity? for UIs that are a bit more obvious. I think that's the initial goal. Again, we just have the thinking. We don't have the principles about the design language. Yeah, that's where we're at right now but we have a pretty good idea of what it entails.
Do you think that the, I'm going to say in air quotes, the thinking behind it is a little bit, and I'm going to use the word contrived, because I think sometimes we sometimes will have...
At the end of the day, I know that we're discussing the fact that a lot of material applications start to look the same, but when you give people guidelines, people are going to just err on the side of caution and stick within those guidelines. Do you think this is the first time where they've basically thought, huh? we kind of There's a perception on Android that the applications are not quite as high quality as they are on iOS, and a lot of that has to do with the intangibles.
Not the elements of the application, the things that feel, and maybe that's the terminology expressive. I don't know, I'm just thinking out loud here. I just feel like... there is sometimes a little bit of a misconception that android applications don't feel or look or operate in the same way they potentially do on iOS and a lot of that is derived from the fact that developers maybe just stick within the bounds of what they're told to do or what frameworks are available. I don't know.
do you think that's along the right lines or do you think that's a little bit silly to think like that no I think it's I think it comes down to a lot of I do still feel that iOS has the indie app advantage in terms of more... one-off or solo small team developers making apps and I think I'd venture to say that most people that most people on Android, they are using apps from big companies. They use a lot of Google apps.
A lot of apps and companies that have a cross-platform. These are just big companies where they're just the big companies making apps.
that large company sense versus I would wager that on iOS there are more more people still it's maybe not not everybody but there's more people making one-off applications making in the applications and i think in the applications they're more likely to push the boundaries of They're trying more unique things versus, again, the big apps that I would say are a bit more standardized.
I think that's the distinction I'd put. And to that end, I think Google's material, you apps so far, well, we're at the end of the line for them, but they're all so consistent. Let's take a recent example. Google Keep and Google Tasks recently updated with material, proper materials, re-designs. and the biggest aspect is changing. They had bottom bars, but now they all use a FAB, a floating action button in the corner. And in a lot of sense, those apps are identical. They look the same.
I think there's quite a few examples of that across Google's apps, and I think the intention here with Material Tree Expressive is to break that out a bit more, to make... UIs that are more specific to the function and purpose of the application. Yeah, I think. I think that's the distinction. I mean, I'm hoping, I definitely agree with you there in that respect. I do hope that looking into it a little bit more, if we look at like, I mean, I hate bringing up iOS and Android all the time, but...
We have a situation whereby, and you alluded to it very briefly there, that on iOS you do need a little bit more to stand out because the level of polish is probably a few steps higher than it is on Android for the most part, apart from some of those big app developers.
and i do wonder if this is this is a first move by google to kind of almost give developers the opportunity to to add that level of polish or almost challenge them to do so maybe i don't know i i don't understand the terminology for expressive because i don't necessarily I think it's a very strange way of doing it. Yeah, I'm not quite there yet, but I mean...
Is this Google's almost realisation that Material You might have failed a little bit in some respects in terms of like it didn't give people the true... The true design that maybe it probably... promised out of the box I don't know I don't know maybe again I feel like I'm thinking out loud a little bit it's again I've said is I'm referring to this as Material 3.5, basically. Google itself, they're keeping Material 3 still in the name of Material 3 expressive. That's one thing.
Again, it's what we saw, and this is important to note, what we saw is a lot of concepts. It's It's not the final. At least I won't be... The final, these are not, these aren't Google specific art teams. This isn't Gmail. This isn't whatever. They're not making, this isn't their final thing. So they're far from the point where they're ready to... ship this and I guess the big question that we have is how soon everything will start shipping
especially in the context of Android 16 coming so soon and next month. So that's indeed a question that we have. I do think some of the concepts do look very striking and very interesting, like most concepts will. I wonder if we'll see any people just take the ball and run with it, as it were, because obviously sometimes you get these conceptual applications and it never comes to fruition, right? That's the whole point. But there is some really interesting concepts.
Obviously, the website that was there, archived by the way, that machine, it showed a really neat alarm application very, very briefly with some very, obviously, very different visually. um stand out ways to enable alarms like i think does that detract a little bit too much from potentially
the usability, because I think at the end of the day we do just want usability more than visuals. Visuals are a secondary component within the usability tree, I guess it is. Like, does there come a point in which
There's overcomplication for the sake of overcomplication here. I just want to rack your brain in it, like what you think. I think some of them look great, some of them... questioning them there's definitely an element of like fonts and styles that are completely mismatched yeah and I think that's intention it's not as uniform and It's, I'm curious, as always, well, I was just talking about the clock example over the weekend.
We had a week about the materials for expressive redesign of Google clock. It looks nothing like these concepts, obviously. As I said earlier, these aren't based on nowhere near the final thing. But the clock redesign we had is it keeps the same basic layout. of what we have today. It's sort of a drastic departure. I think in that week, which I think is a bit more final than these renders, obviously, they show the trend is towards... making things very obvious.
Like very large buttons, full width buttons with text instead of icons. Like how you stop a stopwatch or you wrap. It literally says the word stop rather than using an icon. So there is... in one sense, icon to more universal, uh...
in that you don't need to translate it. I want to interject there, actually, because there is something that I think, as I've definitely, I mean, obviously, I'm showing my age again here, and I show my age nearly every podcast, Do you think there has come a point in which some of the iconography that we've used for traditional desktop paradigms mostly and then has been switched over to mobile?
I wonder if this is a pushback against the fact that there is a generation of people that have grown up on smartphones and grown up on tablets and have never really, in the grand scheme of things, understand the reasoning behind.
certain iconography for user interfaces i.e. files the save icon being a disk and certain things like that I do wonder if this is a deeper level that's a good point Yeah, I wonder if there's some element of that, because, like, I mean obviously it's a little bit different for Google's alarm options and I kind of question some of the decisions in terms of that full width buttons but I guess from an accessibility standpoint
It makes sense as well. All of this seems really, really like the theory that Google has laid out is very, very... I mean, it's simplified probably their true intentions. And I guess we can read into it a little bit more. Do you genuinely think it makes a big deal of difference to someone who's going to have a huge start button and a huge stop button?
I don't think it's going to make much difference to me because I don't really use a stopwatch that often on my phone. But how is this going to translate to bigger screens? Is it going to take up an even larger area of the display? There's a lot of questions I have about it.
I mean, when those applications are very functional anyway, I guess the functions don't get touched. But, yeah, I mean, it's thrown up more questions, to be quite honest with you, to me, than anything else. Yeah, ton of questions. I don't know. Again, we need to see the actual principles about Anna. We need to see how strict slash uniform Google is about. But this call cap is so far our best bet.
It's not drastically different. It's... I think the thing that struck me about the Material 3 expressive vendors that we have, these app concepts, is how they're trying to very much re-architect layouts. Like this email, there was an example of an email compose screen with a very large send button.
It looks nice at a high level, but maybe that's just because it's different from what we have today. But this very big send button, and I... I don't know it's again I think so much of this comes down to actually using it which is can be said about a lot of things of course but I wonder if I don't know. I'd say I think it's a given that things get toned down when it actually ships and apps. But I wonder...
Expressive design, this, Google, and the platonic ideal they want, I think is for you to experiment with app layouts to change things from how the existing structures that we've had for years and years. But I wonder how much experimentation app developers are really going to do at the end of the day. I'm not sure if that's an indictment of it. Again, we don't really know enough the concepts, the principles, the components to really make a final call.
It really comes down to the actual day-to-day stuff and what's actually acceptable for design. Yeah, no, I mean, going back to the email client option, I do wonder if this signpost that we're going to see some big changes in Google's first party applications, like I think... I don't think that Google was thrown out.
all of that work that's been done and all the analysis. And I'm sure they do lots and lots of... I think it's less analysis. It's less familiarity. There's just an expectation of how things work. I don't know how much they're going to lock the boat at the end of the day. Do you think it's... I mean, my first thought is if Google goes ahead and does rock the boat and just says, well, go for it,
get the impression they would try that with applications that don't necessarily have the same amount of state, like there's not as much at stake. So for instance, my first thought was Google Arts and Culture application. They can definitely try it with those kind of applications which are...
seen as I mean they're not even secondary either they're like a real tertiary addition to Google's first party application library and in some ways it almost feels like it isn't a first party application I mean I guess I guess there's a... There's almost like a do what we say in some respects. Here's our ideal of what an application would look like on our platform, but we can't do this because we have billions of users of Gmail and suddenly overnight they might switch to another platform.
It's exciting to see. It's exciting to see. Yeah, I think the one component we have is this floating bottom bar. It's a very traditional component. And we've seen it in Google Chat, but I think the one discussion we've had is... Okay, so it floats. You get to see the background, edge-to-edge apps where you get to shine.
But what are you really getting out of it not being etched off the bottom bar, not going all the way? You're maybe seeing, at best, an additional line of text underneath this bottom bar and above the... system, nav, ball pill how much are you really getting from that how much will people appreciate
How much has it really changed the overall experience? I think those are some questions we're going to come across as we start seeing material to be expressive in apps. So, I don't know. It's... it's it's exciting in that when you see new things but I wonder if If apps do go this full redesign route, rather we'll see a course correction sooner than later.
I don't know, some of these apps, some of these concepts, they look fun. And I don't think you can say that with the current apps that we have. Or maybe that's because we're so used to them. There's a funness to them, a vibrancy. but at the same time, once you subject things to the day-to-day-ness of it, I wonder how much whimsy you really want from your applications.
100% no 100% I think whimsy is one of those things that maybe Google has been going aiming for with expressive I think The idea that
Expressive, to me, they probably need to showcase that in animations a little bit better. Yeah, animations. Obviously, we're only seeing static images. I think animations are where a lot of people generally... generally cede ground and say that iOS animations are probably top tier elite level I think If these concepts are being carried over to what we potentially see in Android 16.1, 16.2, whatever it ends up being, I think there's going to be a real shift in... In just...
And I don't want to say stagnated because that's definitely not true. I think that obviously we very much want to see lots of changes in the OS that we use because we go to the nth degree and we scrutinise every single little thing. I mean, probably. more so than is necessary at times, or so it feels. But I think if Google is laying out this groundwork now and effectively
showcasing these concepts, I want to see them in action. I don't want to just see a flat screen, screenshots. I think that animation is such a huge component within... mobile OS's and obviously you have high refresh rate screens. I do wonder, like you alluded to it just a moment ago with regards to the floating windows, I wonder if that just adds another element of almost...
area of animation so for instance you have a floating window you scroll up you're seeing that big album art in one of the we'll leave it in the show notes so you can go check these out You can almost see the album art move you can see maybe some parallax scroll or that kind of thing I do I do I didn't think I had any interest in what Material 3 Expressive would bring, because I thought it'd be so... I mean, it will be heavily developer-focused, but I was so... not ready for
potentially big visual changes that will affect how we use our phones in the next few years. Whether or not we get it at this level remains to be seen. I do agree with you that we're probably not going to see things thrown out over the next... 12 months or so. But yeah, I'm excited to see where this goes. I think... Whether or not erm...
Whether or not other people out there are happy to see it as well, I'm not so sure. I think a lot of people definitely like consistency with their mobile OSs and we get lots of complaints about the simplest things. Oh, they've moved the save button. For instance, I can think the biggest one, a recent example, is the Gemini icon and the user icon in the Gmail top search bar is it and if you switch between a workspace account and a personal and it switches and you can end up tapping things
As long as it's consistency, I think that's the main thing. Yeah, but at the same time, I think one thing they should... One, with this big redesign, I think they should probably take the opportunity to be more focused on bottom. Yeah, one-handed usage, placing everything at the bottom of the screen. like that. So I think that could be an opportunity. Like, again, let's take the email thing, for example.
They move the send button basically just above your keyboard instead of it being in the very top right corner of your screen. Stuff like that, I think, is an example for them to redesign. if they're forcing apps to undergo this transition, I think this could be a big opportunity for one-handed design, all that stuff. So I think that could be a plus.
I don't see how, whether these, this is how much Google... I think in an ideal world, Google, with all design languages, I guess, in an ideal world, a new design language equals developers taking the time to rethink the entire apps, to change basic layouts, all that. I don't think that really happened at Material 3. I think you still have a bottom bar. A bottom bar will be at the bottom of the screen. I think you still have fabs. You still have... It's... I'm... I don't think...
This will lead to a massive rethink of how apps will work. of buff by most developers. And that's always a bit unfortunate to say, but I think the practicality is, I mean, outside of Google Apps, where do you see Material 3? Mastodon is updated. The app that we pocketcast is just the app we use so much they didn't. They didn't even update the bottom bar to be the new pill-shaped design.
And I guess this is an evergreen complaint, but YouTube, they have their own design language. Google can't even get YouTube to update their apps. even if it's as simple as the bottom bar, because they have their own design language, and what they're prioritizing is cross-platform consistency with iOS, with the web, with TVs. So that's, if Google can't get YouTube to rethink this stuff, even on the basic level, it kind of undercuts the pitch to developers. And that's always unfortunate.
Yeah, I mean, that's a fantastic point. I do think it's very much a case of if you're a developer out there, and I'm sure anyone out there who is a developer, you probably don't want necessarily... They have other priorities. Yeah, you have other priorities. You want something that's functional, and then you're very happy to use it. Yeah, the thing with the big redesigns, they're so disruptive. I use this as I expect.
you to update your apps but like a big redesign of this scale it cuts into them adding new features time for adding new features changes their yearly developer development cycle or whatever. They can either add these up, rethink their app, or even a more basic level update these components, or they could add new features for users. I think maybe we have to decide what's worth it. Wow, that's worth it.
I do agree as well. I think I wonder if there's going to be some element of some developers not wanting to To create an application that almost looks like, I mean, they said a lot of apps are boring and similar. There is going to be a lot of people who just use these off-the-shelf components when we get to see them eventually.
And then they all start to feel samey as a result of that. So yeah, I think there's probably complaints on either side of the fence, but I'm excited to see where it goes. I hope that obviously we have some sessions or there are some sessions planned at IO. I wonder if we'll get some more details of this ahead of... in the Android show and then ahead of IO, as it were. I think we're definitely going to follow it closely and be very interested in it. And I think a lot of people, again...
If their OS is not developing in the visual elements where they want it to, then they're going to hope their applications are as well, because it almost gives them an update within an update, if that makes sense. But yeah, I agree with you. I think developers are not going to... potentially push this too drastically to begin with um yeah that's that's material for expressive It was an interesting lull.
almost semi-leak but yeah let's get into some let's get into some other things that are happening ahead of IO Google has done this really weird thing the last couple of days. I know we always talk about Gemini updates here, but they've done a Gemini 2.5. IO edition, which I don't really understand that, but they're claiming that this has a lot of coding upgrades, which again, that I kind of understand.
Like, what do you think the reason behind this is? Why do you think they've done this just before iOS and tied it into iOS, it was? What do you think the real reason for that is?
I think it's just the nature of these AI models with the industry moving at such a breakneck speed. If they have something ready, they push it out. They're in active competition with the the entire field to say the least and yeah so I think they take this as an opportunity to if they're ready to push everything has been finalized they're going to push it and so I think they frame this as a pre-Io tease and Hopefully that means there'll be...
more consumer-facing stuff. Like, we got the theme, the Gemini read shared themes such as personal, proactive, and powerful. It's... I don't think... The models will always get better. I think that's a given in the state of how there's still room for all these to improve. I think the more important thing about IO is seeing...
how Google takes these powerful models and they apply it to products. And this talk about making Gemini more personal, more proactive, more powerful, I think that's... I think we'll see less of model announcements at IO and more of how these things are going to be applied to the products, to the Frogship Gemini app, and how we are going to start to see them in our day-to-day lives. Daz, I mean...
Again, I do still find it strange that they did it beforehand. I do agree with you that they're pushing it just ahead of an event. It kind of does build some sort of hype, and if it's ready, it's ready. Yeah, hopefully... Hopefully we just get to learn a little bit more about it. I figured we would have even more. Gemini again, as we did last year at IO, it does...
It does strike me as strange, but yeah, I guess it makes sense when you put it in that context. I'm not someone who keeps abreast of every single AI decision, AI change, AI function, but I must admit I've been using... Yeah, I've been using Gemini a lot more recently. I don't know if you've tried out Vio. I know we talked a little bit about it briefly on the podcast before.
It's kind of fun to play around with. I don't really know what the use case would be. How are you feeling about the 720p resolution? You can definitely tell. I wasn't expecting. Yeah. You can tell. Yeah. It is very strange to view a 720p image on an above 1080p screen, which obviously a lot of modern smartphones are now.
I think in a text message it's going to be fine or as an email attachment maybe if you send to somebody. But again, I feel like these feel like throwaway little bite-sized chunks of... a video that you could potentially use there's no sound on them either so that's always a bit weird sending a soundless video I think as someone who shoots video day to day
Yeah, it's a confusing one. Hopefully we get to see some more cool stuff with regards to video and image generation and stuff. I'm still on the fence with it, but I do find it. I find it impressive. It's a little scary at times. I do wonder where it ends up. I hope Google puts more guardrails up. Especially as they made that mistake with Pixel Studio.
Yeah, Gemini, it felt like this is one of those things that was like a little bit of a surprise, but at the same time, yeah, when you put it in contact, it does make sense. I think heading into IO and what's a Gemini app at least. They're more widely rolling out native image editing, which is kind of cool. I know you haven't had a chance to use it yet, but it's this idea you can make edits with prompts. The natural language. It's all like the Google Photos thing that they try.
re-imagine with. That was definitely one of the earlier features that's not based on these latest models. That should probably get an update down the road eventually to the Gemini approach. But yeah, I think heading into Gemini, they're clearing out the basics. They just released an iPad app this week. Also this week, they rolled out home screen widgets for Android.
So again, they're like VO2, that's actively rolling out. They have the image generation models. To me, they seem to be clearing the deck. of getting the basics out. And again, this is sort of a mini, I guess a mini IO preview, but I think... I think they've caught up with the others in terms of what the other AI apps and models offer. So what I'm really hoping for going into I.O. is them to show the future, to start having... discussions and criticisms of the future rather than this basic
It's wild how things become table stakes so quickly. Like image generation just two years ago, that was state of the art that wowed people. But I think we're... We've probably passed the point where it's just table stakes to people. I want to see what a more personal Gemini looks like, one that uses your context in a more comprehensive way than extensions slash Gemini apps today. So yeah, I want problems of the future.
I mean future aside I want to talk about one more thing as well before we shoot off I think We have seen this week, if you haven't already checked your device, I mean, you probably should have done by now, you should have the OTA for the May update, if you have a Pixel 6 in the year. There's a few fixes in there we usually talk about. pre-Android releases in the future, but this is one of those ones that consolidates. And I think this is potentially the final...
Android 15 update save any game breaking bugs that have to be pushed out to Android 15 only devices in the future. They talked a big game about hitting the June timeline, so I think if they miss June and they do one more 15 update, that kind of looks bad, because... They've been talking a big game about accelerating the 360-degree cycle, so fingers very much crossed on next month we'll be talking about the stable release.
And in terms of Android 16, I want to get some thoughts from you from this. What do you think Android 15? I don't know why I'm saying Android 16. It's on my brain. What do you think, Android 15, we've had not even a full year with this release. No. It didn't really change the game in terms of what we're doing with our smartphones, specifically on Pixel phones. What do you think... Yeah, like...
it definitely felt more like Android 14.5 and then that was potentially Android 13.5 in and of itself. Like, Do you think that... I think we're at a point now where 115 really speaks for itself. It's very much... Very mature. It's like a material product. It's very mature, very ready for...
There's no real major game-breaking bugs with Android 15. It doesn't really feel like there's too much missing. And I guess that's maybe why we've been a little bit disappointed with Android 16 beta releases. I'm kind of hoping we get a bit of a teaser. during the Android show for what 16 might bring to the table because, yeah, it just feels like when these big major functionalities are now all tied within what Gemini might do, linking back to what was said just a moment ago. Yeah, if you
Pour one out for Android 15. I mean, it's still going to run. We're still going to be able to use Android 15 for a long time to come, but yeah, that's basically it as far as Android 15 updates are concerned. it's um yeah it's under 16 all the way down all the way down now rightly or wrongly but yeah um interesting time we have lots of things coming up we have just so much to digest ahead of IO and then we have a really busy IO as well so yeah
I'm excited. I don't sound it. I sound tired, but that's because there's so much to do. We're in the long haul, aren't we?
We're always in it for a long haul. Yeah, we're always in it for a long haul. But yeah, I just want to say thanks for joining me up now. I know that was a super quick one today. Hopefully everybody out there enjoyed our little... talk through material through Expressive even though we've expressed our opinions on it and what we're hopefully going to see in future but yeah thanks guys for listening and I will speak to you soon bye