Samsung phones are picking up more Material You elements thanks to latest Gboard beta

Google has been testing different Gboard Material You designs for quite some time. While we’ve yet to see the final form of the keyboard, elements previously included on Pixel phones are now arriving on Samsung phones.

The feature adds splashes of color to various aspects of Gboard on Samsung phones. Backspace, shift, and the symbol switcher button take on a hue based on your selected theme, alongside the comma and period keys. Enter and the toolbar arrow at the top get a similar treatment, but with darker shades. Sadly, the navbar itself does not take on the new color.

Speaking of Material You tweaks, some rounded elements have appeared too, with the symbol switcher and enter taking circular shapes – if you use your keyboard with borders. In addition, the keypress popups have done away with the previous rectangular appearance in favor of a circular one, as we know from Pixel devices.

Left: Current pop-up look. Right: New pop-up look

That’s not all, though. Another feature that has arrived with this beta is the new streamlined look for Gboard’s floating mode. It adjusts the tab for moving the keyboard around by doing away with the circular bulge at the bottom of the UI and replacing the full-sized icon with a horizontal bar, indicating that it’s still movable. The floating keyboard also gets rounded edges, matching the circular keys mentioned above.

Left: Old floating UI. Right: New floating UI

So far, we’ve been able to access these changes on our Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 spirit Galaxy S22 Ultra running Android 12 and using Gboard beta version 11.5.05.427194903. We’ve previously seen general Material You elements pop up in different parts of the Gboard UI on Samsung phones, including a tinted top bar, rounded corners, and an altered system auto icon. But as far as the actual keyboard interface goes, this is the first major overhaul coming to Gboard on Samsung phones.

While these recent changes are not available to everyone just yet, we expect them to arrive soon. If you’d like to try this new version out, head over to APK Mirror to download the latest beta version.

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