It appears the Play Store might be next on the list for a Google Material Theme refresh, following in the steps of Gmail, Google Messages, and Google Drive's recent redesigns. The folks over at 9to5Google have dissected the recent version of the Play Store's APK to discover what this redesign will look like.
While this updated design is a big change from the current Play Store, if you've been using Gmail or Google Drive recently, then it'll all look familiar. For starters, the top search bar is now identical to the one found in a lot of Google's other apps. The old square outline and green box are now gone, opting for a white background with rounded corners and a shadow. From now on, the search bar will also display the category you are searching in, replacing the generic Google Play moniker.
The Play Store has now also adopted a bottom navigation bar. This is where you will find Home, Games, Movies & TV, and Books. The Music category has been removed. However, Browse Music can be found inside of the navigation drawer.
The icons now feature a hollowed out appearance when inactive and are filled with the matching color of the service when selected, for example, green for Games, red for Movies & TV, and blue for Books. With these moved to the bottom, the top carousel now displays For You, Top Charts, Premium, Categories, and more while losing the icons in favor of text-only buttons.
Google has dropped the card interface and now uses a bold font for the text of the section headers, as well as replacing the "more" button with an arrow.
Some big changes have also been made to the app info page, including a switch to the Google Sans font, install bars now stretch the full width, and the app icons are now squares with rounded corners. Even the download indicator has changed when you install an app, as it now appears as a circle around the icon instead of a straight bar.
The My Apps & Games screen has also simplified its design by removing the lines separating apps and providing a shortcut directly to app Permissions.
Overall, this is a big UI overhaul the Play Store has desperately needed to bring it up to date with Material Theme standards and will help it match with other current Google apps. This may not be a finalized version, but it is a good representation of what we can expect when the update does arrive.
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