- Google could revamp Android's volume panel to align it to the Material You standard.
- The feature was manually enabled in Android 15 DP2, making the volume panel collapsible.
- This change should roll out in the upcoming Android 15 Beta 1 update, scheduled for April 2024.
The changes Google pushed with the Android 15 developer previews have been mostly internal. The company, however, hinted at lots of features that will eventually crawl in as we get more beta builds and get closer to the release of stable Android 15. Ahead of Google I/O 2024, where we will see the user-facing changes, one of the latest spottings suggests that Google may revamp the volume panel in Android 15, and it looks quite interesting.
We’ve seen Google change a lot of UI/UX components since Android 12, but one of the UI panels that still uses the old sliders and not the Material You-styled ones is the volume control panel. For those unaware, it pops up when you press the volume rocker and tap the three dots.
Mishaal Rahman (via Android Authority) was able to manually activate the new Volume Control panel on the latest Android 15 Developer Preview. The volume sliders are much thicker and the option to change the output device has been moved to the top. It is now greatly visible unlike previously where it blended in the menu and was harder to spot.
Mishaal says the slider icons are tappable and users can quickly mute or unmute the stream by doing so. This panel collapses too when you press the arrow beside the “Media” volume stream. When you are playing something, the panel opens in its collapsed state and when nothing playing, all the sliders are displayed.
The media output shows up regardless of if the media is playing on your device, unlike previously. When there’s no media playing, the output shows what’s handling media playback, and when media is played, it shows the source from which the media is being played.
Mishaal also says that the design is not finalized. The menu could include things like noise control and spatial audio when it rolls out later this year. Google should start rolling out this feature in the upcoming Android 15 Beta, in April.
The sliders are from the Android Pie days. They look inconsistent when compared to other Material UI elements that were added as a part of Material You. Google should’ve addressed this during the Android 12 release but it’s great to see the volume panel finally getting the much-needed attention with playful animations.
