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Google Translate has long been a powerful tool in the Google toolbox, reaching over 2 billion downloads this year. Now, a new update to the app shows that there may be a big UI change to the Google Translate app coming. This news comes from an APK breakdown done at XDA Developers.
The current design is an echo of Google’s past
The Google Translate app hasn’t seen a lot of love lately, but with Android 12 coming along with its Material You design mentality, it’s time for the app to get a fresh coat of paint. The current design has the translation options up top, right under the text field.
Under the text field and options, you get a history of your recent translations. They’re the classic Material Design rectangular cards. The current design is definitely a remnant of the past Google mentality.
The redesign makes the Google Translate app look less cluttered
This comes just after a big Google Lens redesign. The Google Translate redesign takes a sledgehammer to the current design and starts from scratch. Firstly, the main translate options are at the bottom of the screen. According to XDA Developers, this will help improve one-handed usability.
The overall aesthetic is much cleaner. Instead of taking up a few centimeters at the top, the text field looks to take up the majority of the screen. At the bottom of the screen, we have the languages that are being translated, and immediately under them, we have the translation options.
In the current design, we see the camera, conversation, and the transcribe options under the field. Right next to the text field, we see the handwriting tool and the speak tool. The redesign changes all of these options around.
With the redesign, the camera and speak options are right under the text field. Right next to them is a “More” button. Unde this we expect to see the other options that are present in the current design. The history feature is either gone or hidden under the “More” button.
This redesign might not make it to phones
Since this was discovered in an APK teardown, we don’t know if this will even hit phones. Developers usually hide new features in their apps’ current builds, flipping the switch to implement them. This redesign could disappear completely for all we know.
Even if Google launches this redesign, it may only hit Pixel 6 devices. We see the line “app_name_p21” within the app’s code. The “p” is expected to stand for Pixel, and the “21” is meant to be the year 2021. This means that it’s possibly only for the 2021 Pixel devices coming out.
