Last week, Google announced that it was optimizing widgets for Android tablets. The updated Google Drive widget is now rolling out with an interesting circle design which is new to Material You.
Google is specifically updating “Drive quick actions” with shortcuts to quickly start a new document in Docs, Sheets, or Slides. This replaces the plus icon in the bar layout that just opened the bottom design sheet.
This new shortcut joins others for quickly opening Drive, searching, downloading, and launching the camera. By default, everything is laid out in a 3×2 configuration.
However, making the widget larger makes the Google Drive widget look more like a circle than a rotating dial. This is a new shape for Material You widgets, the previous unique look being an X shape (or flower petal). It’s really snappy and really only works for apps with lots of shortcuts.
On tablets, you can find this new circular widget layout with Google Drive version 2.22.357.1 on tablets. This new design does not appear on Android phones.
Landscape vs. Portrait
As of last week, Google also rolled out the modified Keep widget that changes from a sidebar to a bottom bar. We still don’t see the widely available dual pane view yet.
Meanwhile, Google is also rolling out multi-instance support for Docs, Sheets, and Slides on Android. This allows you to have two windows open side by side and will be fully launched in the next few days. Google Drive has already been updated with something similar.
Learn more about Google Drive:
FTC: We use revenue-generating automatic affiliate links. After.
Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more info: