Google is continuously working towards the uplifment of user experience by introducing new features or fixing the already relevant ones. Today, the company is testing numerous server-side UI changes that’ve been introduced in different geographical locations, reports Android Police. These include a boxy carousel redesign, entertainment section renaming, and search bar removal from the top.
Let’s begin with the most basic changes that’ll catch your eye, the moment you’ll open the Play Store to download the next application. The large white search bar which was previously placed atop the featured apps carousel has been removed. It has now been replaced with a fixed green bar up-top that packs in the hamburger menu, Google Play Store branding and the search button.
Yes, a search button. Google is now making the Play Store branding more prominent with the removal of the sticky search bar and placing it within the small search icon on the top-right. To begin a search, you’ll now need to tap the search icon, whereas voice search will now take two taps as opposed to one in the previous design. But, it wouldn’t hurt anyone as not a whole lot of people use voice to search for apps, movies, games and other relevant stuff.
The next big change that Google is testing involves the two core categories and the features apps carousel. Earlier, when the search bar was omnipresent at the top of the Play Store, the caraousel’s images used to stretch from left to right. But, the completely stretched out images have now been switched out for a more rounded card-like structure. The carousel cards(holding the featured images) now don’t go behind the search bar or the hamburger menu and exist independently.
Also, did you notice the small change in “Apps and Games” and “Entertainment” sections above? No! Well, Google seems to think that including a descriptive section title to tell that the second tab included ‘Music, Books and Movies’ isn’t worth the pain. The company thinks that it is more befitting to cluster all those categories into one tab and call it ‘Entertainment’. Also, alongwith the name change, the tabs have now been moved to the tab as compared to their previous position below the featured carousel. The ‘section’ name change might be available to all but the positioning of the same will only change if the carousel design changes.
Prior to this, Google has already nixxed Google+ integration from reviews and has been testing out a robust new rating system based around specific features, an option to queue app downloads, and an enhancement to show file sizes right on the app card.
