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Google could be cooking up a new look for voice search in the Play Store (APK teardown)
Published on4 hours ago
- Google is working on a new UI for voice search.
- The new UI only shows up when you tap the mic icon while in the Search tab.
- The bottom sheet shows your recent searches, up to your last four.
Using voice search in the Google Play Store is fairly simple. Just tap the mic icon and a pop-up will appear, prompting you to speak. While that pop-up gets right to the point and it’s immediately clear what it wants you to do, it could be more engaging. It seems Google has noticed this and is now working on a new UI for voice search.
An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
Currently, when you activate voice search in the Play Store, a box-shaped pop-up will show up on the screen. In that box, you’ll see the Google logo, a mic icon inside a pulsating circle, the words “Try saying something,” and the language setting.
While investigating version 44.7.24-31 of the Google Play Store, we noticed this UI has been changed, but curiously only when in the Search tab. In the screenshot below, you can see what the new voice search UI looks like.
You are no longer greeted by a box-shaped pop-up when activating voice search. Instead, a sheet opens with the text “Listening…,” followed by a drawing of someone talking and the Google Assistant logo. Another new addition you’ll see is your search history. At the bottom of the sheet, you’ll see up to your last four most recent searches.
As mentioned earlier, this new UI only appears when you tap the mic icon while in the Search tab. If you do this anywhere else in the app, you’ll get the old UI, as demonstrated in the video above. It’s possible that this is unintended behavior that Google will fix along the way.