Key Points:
- Material You introduces a shorter bottom navigation bar with more expressive animations.
- New toggle buttons and button groups offer dynamic interactions.
- Sideloading Android apps now requires an extra step due to APK changes.
Material You Enhancements for Google Apps
At the I/O 2023 event, Google’s Material team introduced new features for large-screen devices like foldables and tablets. One of the key updates is the shorter bottom navigation bar, known as the “Short Navigation Bar,” which makes navigation more compact. This new bar will soon be officially available in Material 3, offering less margin above and below the icons. For medium-sized screens, like foldables, labels will appear next to the icons.
In addition to the navigation bar, Material You is adding more expressive elements to its design. This includes reactive icons that respond to touch and a broader range of typography that adjusts dynamically to different layouts. New components like Toggle Buttons will change shape when pressed, and Button Groups will contract or expand based on user interaction. Motion effects are categorized into Spatial, which changes component shapes, and Effect, which changes colors upon tapping.
Extra Step for Sideloading Android Apps
Google has been working on making Android apps smaller through the Android App Bundle (AAB) format, which was introduced in 2018 and became the default in 2021. AAB allows Google Play to download only the necessary parts of an app for a specific device, saving storage space. However, Google recently stopped generating full-size APKs from AABs, meaning users now need additional tools to sideload apps.
Previously, users could easily share and install full-size APKs, known as “fat APKs,” from services like APKMirror. Now, with the switch to AABs, sideloading apps requires tools like APKMirror Installer or Split APKs Installer (SAI). This change adds an extra step but does not impact users who download apps directly from the Play Store.
While this update might be a minor inconvenience for those sideloading apps, it ensures more efficient and optimized app installations for most users.
