Android is the most popular mobile operating system in the world. But here in the US, Apple owns a solid majority<\/a> of all phones sold. The numbers skew even more heavily toward iOS when you look at younger demographics. A 2025 survey from investment bank Piper Sandler<\/a> reports that 88 percent of teenagers polled own an iPhone. A 2023 article in The Wall Street Journal<\/a> found that kids who dared to bring an Android phone to school faced teasing for using what is seen as a phone for old people. Google, it seems, would like to do something about that.<\/p>\n The screenshots from the blog post, which were saved by 9to5Google<\/a>, give us a peek at what Google\u2019s attempt to appeal to the youth looks like. It builds on Material You, the interface that Google introduced with Android 12<\/a>, with a focus on customizability. It added the ability to change the system-wide color palette based on your wallpaper, a feature that Apple more or less copied in iOS 18<\/a> with an option to tint homescreen icons. Material Three pushes even further, mixing in bold fonts, bigger icons, and vibrant colors. <\/p>\n Material Three seems to emphasize bold icons and colors even more than Material You did. Image: Google \/ 9to5Google<\/p>\n The leaked blog post calls Material Three its \u201cmost-researched update to Google\u2019s design system, ever.\u201d Google\u2019s leaked post says it conducted 46 studies testing its new designs, with over 18,000 participants. \u201cWhile there was a net positive indication across all age groups, younger study participants had the most enthusiastic preference for M3 Expressive, and also rating the designs as high in Visual Appeal and Intention to Use,\u201d the post claimed.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not all about the youth. It also says, \u201c\u2026with Expressive versions, we\u2019re seeing a removal of age effects in fixation times, helping 45+ year old users perform on par with their younger counterparts.\u201d Let\u2019s just remember that anyone who\u2019s 45 has probably owned a smartphone longer than the \u201cyounger counterparts\u201d have been alive, and I think they were finding the email send button just fine, but I appreciate the consideration.<\/p>\n Google\u2019s researchers had participants rate the designs for certain attributes, including those \u201cCoolness Attributes\u201d like \u201cStand Apart\u201d and \u201cFascinating.\u201d Great! What the hell does that mean?<\/p>\n Apparently, Google thinks it\u2019s an indicator that people might actually be willing to switch to Android based on these designs. \u201cWe\u2019ve also seen that this coolness isn\u2019t just a vanity metric, but a positive driver of behavioral intent, meaning users are more likely to want to switch to a product with this design.\u201d <\/p>\n Image: Google \/ 9to5Google<\/p>\n There\u2019s only so much Google can do. No amount of vibrant color treatments and \u201cfascinating\u201d icons will change the fact that an Android owner is still the green bubble in the group chat.<\/p>\n Apple knows that locking people into iMessage is a huge factor in keeping them in the ecosystem, particularly with the phones people give their kids<\/a>. RCS has made cross-platform chats much more bearable, but we\u2019re still not quite at feature parity \u2014 and those bubbles are still green. <\/p>\n Honestly, I don\u2019t hate Material Three, and leaning into a design that looks so different from iOS strikes me as a better idea than making an iOS knockoff. But, at least in the US market, a decision by Apple to open iMessage and FaceTime would do more to boost Android sales than anything Google\u2019s designers can dream up. <\/p>\n Is that fair? Not at all, and regulators are trying to do something about it<\/a>. The UI glow-up doesn\u2019t hurt, but I don\u2019t think this is a situation Google can design itself out of.<\/p>\n![\"Image](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Material-3-Expressive-leak-11.webp\"\/)
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