Material Design update hits Google Drive, Docs, Slides and Sheets

Google opened up sales to the brand new Nexus 6 today, it ships with Android 5.0 Lollipop, which is the first version of Android that is imbued with Material Design. No better time to push out Material Design to a handful of Google apps, this time out we look at Drive, Docs, Slides and Sheets.

The updated versions of your trio of office suite apps – Docs, Slides and Sheets – in conjunction with your Google cloud storage solution, Google Drive, will start rolling out right away and may take a few days to get to everyone.

One of the biggest changes you’ll notice, across all the properties, is the addition of an “Incoming” link in the left hand menu. This section holds all of the goodies that others have shared with you through Google’s services. Not unlike the Incoming section you would find in Google Drive on the web.

The Material Design improvements are about as good as you’d expect to see for non-Lollipop creations. The hamburger menu gets a little overhaul and there are a few nifty new animations to enjoy, including a new refresh animation.

In terms of functionality, I am very excited to see some old school keyboard shortcuts updating in the mix. Ctrl+C should work much better now when attached to a Bluetooth keyboard. A new “Make a copy” button under “Share & export” again duplicates features found in Drive/Docs on the web.

Last, Google Sheets is receiving a tiny addition that will make some of us very happy, you can now select a range of cells, by tapping and dragging, while editing a formula.

For a fresh install of Google’s apps, head on over to the Play Store – again, that was Drive, Docs, Sheets and Slides getting the Material Design touches today. For those of us with the apps already installed, look out for the updates coming soon.

Are you liking all of these Material Design app updates slowly trickling through, or would you rather just wait for Android 5.0 Lollipop to get them all at once?