Despite the large number of cloud storage services available today, Google Drive has stood the test of time with its consistently lined-up feature set. But, as was the case for Android tablets, the large-screen mobile app left a lot to be desired. That’s about to change now with Google rolling out a Drive redesign, which incorporates a lot of the same interface changes we’ve seen with the redesign of the Contacts app and more. The takeaway for the big picture? Make better use of the display area.
The design change begins with repositioning the navigation bar from the bottom of the screen to the left side of it. There is a button at the top of this navigation bar that allows you to collapse or expand its contents. Below it, you’ll find a traditional floating action button followed by the Home, Starred, Shared, and Files tabs, in that order. What’s more, the search bar at the top is limited to just half the width of the screen, a change consistent with recent contacts redesigns for tablets.
The side-by-side comparison photo I posted is posted Google Workspace Updates blog (via XDA Developers) gives us a clearer picture of the changes on the plane. While the Suggestions and Notifications tabs are present with the new design, they take up much less space than before.
Making better use of that fallow real estate, Drive also gets three little icons in the top right for Help, Settings, and your Google user profile. Finally, more files are shown thanks to this new update as the main screen shows up to 9 recent Drive files compared to only 2 files in the older version of the app. Google says the redesign also simplifies the process of checking file details on Drive.
Just over a week ago, the web version of Drive and Docs received a Material You redesign. With the company also making some long-awaited changes to its tablet apps, the stage seems to be set for the Pixel Tablet’s arrival, possibly around the same time as Google I/O this year.
All users will eventually get this UI change – express release domains get it now while scheduled release domains will start receiving it on April 3rd.
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