Material 3 Expressive switched back to a shorter bottom bar, but not all apps — like Google Home — adopted that at launch. That has now changed.
Update 12/12: The short Google Home bottom bar is now rolled out on Android — unchanged for iOS users — with version 4.3.56.2 (server-side update). Phone by Google looks like it will be the next app to get this tweak.
Original 11/19: Google Home for Android now conforms to this Material 3 Expressive update. The flexible navigation bar (as it’s officially referred to) is shorter, while the text label has also been tweaked.
In practice, you don’t meaningfully see any more content with this small change, but consistency across apps is always nice.
Old vs. new
On that note, other first-party apps that still have the tall bottom bar despite otherwise getting M3 Expressive redesigns include Phone by Google and Pixel Journal. Some apps like Google Maps and the Play Store, as well as all the YouTube clients, never switched over during the Material 3 era.
The updated Google Home bottom bar rolled out as a server-side update, though version 4.3 is now widely rolling out on Android. This change is not yet on iOS.
More on Google Home:
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- Google Home app previews ‘significant’ device controller redesign, local Matter control
- IKEA’s new lights, sensors, and remotes work with Google Home through Matter, and they’re super cheap
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