Google app rolls out colorful Search shortcuts on Android [U]

The Google app is not the company’s nicest looking application, but a small carousel redesign on Android makes it a tiny bit more cohesive.

Update 10/18: As of this week, the Google app’s new colorful Search shortcuts are widely appearing in the stable channel (version 15.40). They are more compact with the removal of text labels helping make the app look less cluttered.

Looking ahead, you can expect a Material 3 bottom bar.

Original 8/30: Previously, you had five pill-shaped shortcuts underneath the Search bar. Each was accompanied by an icon, name, and short description.

Search photo: From your library

Translate text: With your camera

Solve homework: With your camera

Identify song: By listening

Shop for products: In your screenshots

The text — which mixed sentence and upper case — was a bit unwieldy and the double carousel design cluttered the app quite a bit.

Old vs. new

Google is now simplifying those shortcuts to feature just icons, be smaller, and colorful background that stand out a great deal more. Most open Google Lens, while the last one is Sound Search. The icons are more than enough to convey each function.

What’s also nice about this approach is that you can see all four in one go. Scrolling only comes into play when you’ve taken a recent screenshot that can be analyzed. Meanwhile, it looks less like a carousel so the “your space” cards — which are nice and glanceable — below are more prominent.

This design has been implemented in the Google Search app on iOS for quite some time.

We’re seeing this carousel redesign with the latest Google app beta (version 15.34). It’s not yet in stable channel.