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The new and just released Google Play Newsstand application combines former Google Currents and Google Play Magazines, offering the user both, paid subscriptions to newspapers and magazines, as well as free web articles, RSS feeds and blog posts. It’s currently an Android exclusive, but the company already confirmed the work on an iOS version, which is scheduled to be released next year.

But what about a web version? The ‘magazines’-section with all the subscriptions is of course already built into the Play Store. But why not replace this section with a new Newsstand section, too, thus also adding the (free) web stuff? What such an implementation might look like is shown in the concept pictures above (in full-size and uncropped: Concept1 and Concept2).

There are a lot of things that point against such an implementation.

Google is, for instance, already in charge of a news service on the web - Google News. Why shall they work on two very similar, competing services? Google News’ design might not be as up-to-date and beautiful as the new Newsstand app, but with an update it might easily become that nice looking, too. And maintaining two services seems even less likely when thinking of the ‘death’ of the Google Reader and Google’s intent to keep their product lineup as clean as possible. - Or might Google News be the next service Google wants to get rid of?

Within Android 4.4 KitKat, widgets may have lost their very prominent positioning directly next to the app list, but while adding them to the same place like wallpapers sounded strange at first, Google - in contrast to many manufacturers - found a really great solution with this 'homescreen-editor'. It’s not just a new option there, but the overall interface just makes more sense.

Nevertheless the user experience and management of widgets hasn't changed much and is still very poor. As is also the quality of widgets. Some applications include tons of widgets all being basically the same, but in different sizes. Some may make them resizable, but all in all also only include 1-2. And the majority still does not even include any widgets at all. Additionally also the look of widgets is mostly more than outdated and their functionality is limited, too.

The concept shown here tries to find a way widgets can become an as powerful form factor for Android, as they once were. The general idea is that applications should include much much more widgets (being different in functionality, not only in size). And to prevent the list of widgets from looking cluttered, all these different widgets should not be simply listed anymore, but shown in an app-specific interface.

Google Now is a great and unique service. Not only because of the predictive cards, but also because of the voice control.

Nevertheless many people see Apple’s Siri more as a virtual assistant than Google Now (probably because it’s much more voice-centered and many Android manufacturers use their own assistants). But the Hummingbird update shows, for instance, that Google Now is not only on one level with Siri now, but that it also has much more capabilities.

Siri and Google Now, however, are both only good virtual assistants for the real life anyway. I mean you always have to switch into a completely different application when starting them. And when you got your answer you first have to find your way back to where you came from.

In many situations it would be a lot more if Google Now would not always open as a full application, but - as shown in this concept - in kind like a window over other applications. Kind like Facebook’s chat heads work. The user may ask his question and while Google is looking up the answer you can simply continue with whatever you were doing. It would also make it more attractive for longer “conversations” and give voice control finally a real advantage over simply writing what you want.

Chrome might not be the smoothest browser on smartphones after all, but it’s still a whole lot of fun to use (even more after the latest update with the new gestures). The ‘New Tab’ page, however, is a mess on both, Chrome for Android and on the normal desktop version. And this although it’s probably the first site a lot of users get to see first after starting the application everyday.

This concept deals with a redesigned ‘New tab’ page for the mobile version. First, the new grid app menu has been added directly at the very top, alongside the notification bell and a Google logo.

Below this, the tabs ‘Most visited’, ‘Bookmarks’ and ‘Other devices’ have been placed. This menu has also been slightly redesigned, thus being now more consistent with other Google services and looking up-to-date.

The list of ‘Recently closed’ sites has also been moved from the very bottom to the top, which indeed also makes more sense, as a user certainly wants to find accidentally closed tabs as fast as possible.

Then (finally) the ‘Most visited’ pages are listed. There may be still not more than 6-8 of them, but they do now take much more space, as they are much larger. Google Now’s card interface has been adapted here. The biggest part of the cards is filled by screenshots, though a new bar has been added at the bottom, containing new options, such as a separate button for opening the site in a new tab (which could of course also be done by simply holding on the icon) and a share option.

Multitasking is somehow one of Android’s key features. It works fast, fluid and no matter what we've seen to come with iOS7: because of software buttons you’re always one click faster than on every other OS. And that’s what multitasking is today essentially also about: switching between applications as fast as possible.

So below is a concept showing how multitasking on #Android may become even better. The idea is that the user can swipe between the opened applications by swiping either from the left or the right edge of the phone with two fingers.

Throughout the last few years Google has somehow reached to make kind like all of it’s applications look great and fun to use. One of the apps that has not been full-redesigned for some time now is the Google calendar. It’s also a great application and much better than most not-Google apps, but it’s not comparable to what we've seen lately. So I kind of looked at other recently updated Google apps, such as the Play store, Google Maps and Music, and designed some changes and ideas on my own!

At first, the top bar got colored and a navigation menu has been added. There’s also now always the current agenda at the bottom, which can be pulled up, listing events that are set during the time space your looking at (for example month or another week).