Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
In brief
- Google Contacts 4.39 prepares a small change in the display of contacts.
- By moving the names to the left, you can make room for longer entries in your contacts.
App updates don't have to be groundbreaking to be worthwhile, and as much as we'd like to see developers deliver bold new features at every opportunity, the reality of app maintenance is usually much more low-key. While some of it definitely involves adding new features, it feels like a lot of changes are more of the “UI tweak” variety. There's good reason for that, because it can really take a lot of fiddling to get the finer points of an app's UI right. Today we're looking at some of the latest efforts in that direction when it comes to Google Contacts.
A APK teardown helps predict features that might be included in a service in the future based on code in progress. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it into a public release.
Contacts has received a lot of attention from Google so far this year, as the app isn't getting any flashy new AI features. These changes have included both feature updates, like adding new ways to interact with the Contacts widget, and minor UI reconfigurations like we saw with connected apps back in March.
Looking through version 4.39 of Contacts, we spot hints of an upcoming change that could be the next corner of the app's UI that Google plans to tweak. Unless you've looked at the old and new versions side by side like we did here, we'd forgive you for not even noticing what Google has tweaked:
That's the layout we have on the left now, and while it works well with the contacts shown here, we have to admit that it doesn't make the best use of space. Instead, Google seems to be working on making the screen smaller by pushing all entries to the edge of the screen. This forces the letter separators to slide into the contact list itself, which also causes the names to be split into groups. All in all, it seems fine, and we can see how this frees up space for contacts with particularly long names.
So far, this new look isn't visible in Contacts, but especially considering how low the stakes are, it seems like Google could implement this change at any time. Keep an eye out for this new interface to arrive in your phone's Contacts soon.
