Android 12’s Material You interface is invited on the Google Gboard keyboard

The site 9to5Google has discovered new functions in the Google Gboard keyboard that is more adapted to the new Material You interface of Android 12.

Android 12’s new Material You design // Source: Google

Next month, Google is expected to release the final version of the next major Android update, Android 12. A version that should give a privileged place to the new design language, Material You. This allows you to associate the dominant colors of your wallpaper to reuse them in different elements of the interface, but also in Google applications as well as in third-party programs.

Of course, the keyboard should also benefit from Material You. In any case, this is what the 9to5Google site was able to detect within the Google Gboard application, the virtual keyboard developed by the Mountain View firm. In fact, the group’s specialized news site has searched the application’s version 10.9 source code to discover certain elements related to Material You.

By decompiling the APK file for Google Gboard, 9to5Google has discovered some new features that allow the virtual keyboard to be more closely linked to the Android 12 interface. This is particularly the case for zooming when a key is pressed. This is no longer displayed in a square box, but in a round box. The same happens when you press for a long time on a box, which no longer has a rectangle, but a lozenge shape with rounded sides.

A revised interface in Gboard settings

Within the application settings, the Google Gboard themes have also been revised to highlight some of them, in particular using rounded frames that are no longer rectangular.

Google Gboard had has already been updated in recent weeks in order to add the main novelties of Android 12, namely the automatic adaptation of the keyboard colors to the dominant color of the wallpaper, as well as the shapes of the keyboard keys.

In recent months, Google has already updated many of its apps to be ready for the Android 12 launch next month. It is the case of Google Contacts, but also Google Messages or from Google Chrome. As a reminder, Google has yet to release a new beta version of Android 12 this month before an expected final rollout during the month of September. Then it’s up to the manufacturers to tailor the update to bring it to their various smartphones.