The Google News Progressive Web App is getting a massive Material You redesign to match mobile

You may have been wondering why all of Google’s apps have been receiving Material You redesigns while the Google News app remains boring and old school (the current design is still really nice). In recent memory, the “For you” tab has rethought its layout, using Google’s bold, new font, and playfully colored headings, but just on mobile. As for the web layout, News has remained almost entirely the same for a long while.

In version “gnews_webapk_unit_20200515_RC00” of the Google News Progressive Web App installed from the Google Play Store, we’ve encountered the beautiful mobile Material You layout on our Chromebooks. In the example above, you can see the tinted blue backdrop, colorful headings, rounded corners for cards, and larger images along with the two-column Full Coverage section.

Most notably, the left-hand navigation is now aligned at the top, freeing up loads of space. The weather widget is also across from the “Your briefing” heading instead of being aligned with the first news article. It also has a left arrow on it which lets you slide out more weather predictions beyond just today’s. Check it out below – each section still only consists of a single column for news articles, but overall, the entire design just feels so much more breathable and exciting. This is truly a much-needed and long-overdue update!

Anyone running Google News for Android version 3.5 on their smartphone should be receiving a Material You remake of the bottom navigation right now or very soon as reported by other outlets, but this larger PWA redesign is just beginning to roll out, and may take a little while to hit your device.

Please be sure to let us know in the comments whether you’ve received it yet. It’s most likely going to be a server-side switch as the PWA has not been updated on the Play Store for the past few years since it was uploaded. This is because it no longer has a need to since it’s well, a web app!