Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
The Google Android app offers a tab that displays your search history and saved items.
Previously called Saved, Google changed it into Activity earlier this year.
Now we’re also seeing Journeys and Library labels in testing, with even more names in the running.
What’s in a name, anyway? Maybe a lot, actually, and if you’re trying to design a user interface that’s as intuitive as possible, the choice of labels you apply can end up mattering quite a bit. The Google app on Android has been working on some internal rebranding since last year, and based on what we just spotted, it sounds like the project is far from over.
⚠️ An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release.
Down at the bottom of the Google app for Android, you’ll find a set of navigation buttons: Home, Search, Notifications, and a fourth that offers a historical view. This is where you’ll see your search history, and be able to find content you previously chose to save.
This screen used to be called Saved, but last fall we started seeing Google test a new name for this view, rebranding it as Activity. By the spring, availability had greatly expanded within the beta program, and we’ve since seen it hit stable.
But it turns out this may not be the end of the story. Maybe not by a long shot.
Instead of Activity, some people on version 16.30.59.ve.arm64 beta of the app are seeing that same screen presented as Journeys, like Telegram user Mitso above. But Google’s experimentation with new names doesn’t seem limited to the beta, as we’ve also spotted it identified as Library in a stable build.
All told, Google seems to be considering a lot of different options for this screen. In addition to ones we’ve seen, strings within the app reveal even more alternatives:
Code
Copy TextActivity
Hub
Journeys
Library
Recents
You
Your space
We’ve observed the app using different labels even with the same Google account on multiple phones, so this really does appear to be an active experiment.
Most of those names are reasonably evocative of what you’ll find on the tab, even if Hub or You feel a bit broad. But while we’re not surprised to see Google considering all its options, it is a little odd to find quite so many in the running.
While we’re still seeing the same content despite the shifting branding, it does look like Google is also thinking about adding something new to this history page:
Code
Copy TextRecent Song Searches
Google’s got a few different tools for identifying songs, but so far your Now Playing history has existed separately from your web history here. We haven’t yet managed to get this view working just yet, but based on the label it sure seems that Google’s considering adding it to the app here.
We’ll keep looking for any new progress along that line, and see if Google can’t maybe make up its mind about which name it ultimately wants to use for this history view.
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