Google's Material 3 is expressive and provides animated makeover for Android

Well, the leak is correct. Google is updating the appearance of Android and Wear OS to make its mobility and wearable operating system more visually expressive and animated.

Google calls it a new design system material 3 Extrandive and plans to introduce it later this year when Android 16 is launched and OS 6 is worn. Material 3 builds Google changes made by introducing Android 12 materials by adding “more natural, elastic animation”, a deeper, updated “dynamic color theme” and “emphasized typography”. If you are familiar with Apple's approach to animation in iOS, Google seems to use a similar philosophy here, making software elements more reactive to each other and your inputs, and layered tactilely, so you can feel their reactions as well.

The company specifically calls for other ways to bounce and hop when you pull a stack from the notification shadow and when you ignore the app's haptics in the recent app menu, but the new animation should be eye-catching in Android 16. This is worth noting throughout Android 16. This is with the more entertaining usage of Google's stock app and the more entertaining ways in Google's stock app, and has a bigger attitude. For more personalization options, Google says the Quick Settings menu can now be customized to fit more actions, unlike the Control Center in iOS 18. On the lock screen, the app also has the option to display real-time notifications, and Google calls the feature “real-time update”, equivalent to real-time activity in iOS.

Given the smaller screen real estate, the Material 3 expressiveness is not a major change in the wear OS, but once you update, there are still visual changes worth noting. As you scroll through the list and browse, this includes new animations, dynamic color themes matching the rest of the watch to the surface of the hand, and adjust notifications to make it easier to interact with. According to Google, this should increase battery life by 10% with the OS 6 smartwatch.

Material 3 Extra has added more quirky Pizazz, making the company's software stand out in the past few years, but Google claims the changes are also backed by research. The company said Material 3 Expression is “the most studied update of Google design system ever.” There is a blog that is studying some of Google's findings, but it's particularly noteworthy that the Material 3 expression app is attractive to young people – the company claims that up to 87% of young people aged 18-24 prefer expression designs – while being easier to understand people over 45 years old.

It remains to be seen whether developers will stride through these changes, but at least Android 16 and Wear OS 6 are visually more exciting than anything Google has released over the years.