Google is due to unveil its new “Material 3 Expressive” design system at I/O 2025 this month, but someone at the company accidentally published a blog post about it this week. It was promptly deleted but the Wayback Machine already archived it and the quick-thinking folks at 9to5Google saved the images as well.
The blog post itself was all about the research that went into the new design system for Android 16. Google spent three years carrying out various studies and experiments with over 18,000 participants, including:
- Eye tracking to see where people focus their attention
- Surveys and focus groups to gather opinions and impressions
- Experiments to discover preferences
- Usability tests to see how quickly people could learn to use the interface
As you can guess from the naming, Google is going for an “expressive” design with this new system, which is all about making people “feel something” when they interact with the UI. According to Google’s research, this is both popular with younger people and easy to use for older people.
These images from the blog illustrate the difference between expressive design and non-expressive design.
The Gmail app mockup is the most striking to me, it does feel like email app designs are still stuck in the past “just because.” I want to see the images I attach and work with a design that actually feels like it was made for a phone.
Big text, bigger main buttons, floating toolbars, and “bold use of shape and color” are some of the main ideas behind Material 3 Expressive — but the images Google posted aren’t necessarily what you’ll end up with on your phone.
First of all, they’re currently only concept designs — no actual product exists yet. Secondly, when manufacturers like Samsung or Nothing make an Android phone, they make their own UI designs which all look a little different.
Now that we’ve seen lots of images and learned plenty about the research process, all that’s left is to find out exactly how (and when) Material 3 Expressive will be implemented. Hopefully, I/O 2025 will answer those questions.
Willow Roberts has been a Computing Writer at Digital Trends for a year and has been writing for about a decade. She has a…
Android 16 brings a blind fingerprint unlock perk to Pixel phones
Google is currently moving full steam ahead with the development of Android 16. Following the release of a third beta update just over a week ago, Android 16 has reached the platform stability milestone. Though the latest test build is light on feature updates, it brings a cool new trick.
On Pixel smartphones, users can now unlock their phone even if the screen is completely dark. First spotted by the folks over at Android Authority, the new “Screen-off Fingerprint Unlock” feature has been integrated within the phone’s Security & Privacy dashboard.
So far, Pixel smartphone users had to wake up the screen and put their thumb atop the fingerprint sensor icon on the Lock Screen. This had to be done either by waking up the screen with a tap gesture, or by pressing the power button.
Thanks to the new screen-off unlock convenience, users can simply place their thumb atop the in-display fingerprint sensor and get past the Lock Screen. There is no longer an intermittent hassle of lighting up the screen.
I was able to enable this feature after installing the Android 16 Beta 3.1 build, which runs atop the March 2025 security update, on a Pixel 8 smartphone. The new feature is a thoughtful convenience and works flawlessly.
It does, however, take a bit of muscle memory to land the thumb right above the fingerprint sensor on an otherwise dark screen. Also worth noting here is the fact that Google won’t be the first smartphone maker to offer this convenience.
I tried unlocking my OnePlus 13 and Samsung Galaxy S25 without waking up the screen, and it works just fine. Both devices are currently running Android 15, and notably, offer a faster fingerprint unlock experience compared to the Pixel 8, irrespective of whether the screen is on or off.
I’d like to point out that the screen-off fingerprint unlock system has arrived with a beta build, and Google might remove — or delay it — when the stable Android 16 update starts rolling out widely in the coming months.
For now, your only option to experience it is by enrolling in the Android 16 beta-testing program on a compatible Google Pixel smartphone. I would, however, recommend waiting out a few more weeks for the stable update to land on your Pixel smartphone, and save yourself the buggy mess of test builds.
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Android 16 will add handy productivity feature for desktop workers
It looks like Android 16 will add a feature that lets you screen record what you’re doing on an external monitor. This is an expansion of a current Android 15 feature that enables you to screenshot external monitors connected to Android devices.
Spotted by Android Authority, Android 16 Beta 3 includes a third option in the screen recorder menu: “Record HDMI Screen.” It works just the same as recording your device display, encoding and saving the resulting video in the same way as well.
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Your Google Assistant just lost a bunch of features ahead of the move to Gemini
We’ve only just learned that Google Assistant is being replaced with Gemini, and now, it turns out that some features are being quietly retired as a result. Some will be available as part of Gemini, but devices that don’t yet have access to Google’s latest AI companion may not have an immediate replacement. Here’s what’s going away.
As spotted by 9to5Google, Google Assistant will lose a total of seven features, and this will affect Android, Nest Hub, and Nest speakers users.
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