Google Experimenting With Ditching the Black Bar for a New Launcher

[techbeck]

There's a new, cleaner Google web interface being tested out there right now, which does away with the black bar in favour of nicking the Chrome OS and Android grid icon and using it to to populate a nice little white dropdown.

If you want to give the alternate Google launcher a shot, there's a method to access it involving editing your cookies, which then tricks the interface into thinking you have an Eric Schmidt level of access and lets you use this possible future way of doing things right now.

While it's nice to see the company moving away from 1990s white-on-black style with this new dropdown, it goes against Google's previous love of simplicity by introducing more clicks to the process. And there's nothing worse than a redesign that turns a one-click task into a two-click task. [Google OS]

http://gizmodo.com/5994747/google-experimenting-with-ditching-the-black-bar-for-a-new-launcher

[fusi0n]

Good!

[tsupersonic]

Hmm not a huge fan - it is an additional click. The black bar is an elegant and minimal way to access quick shortcuts with one click. I would like them to keep the black bar, but to make it customizable. Better yet, let users choose if they want the black bar or the new option...

[Charisma Veteran]

I like the black bar. Anybody else just more interested in this cookie-hackish trick to unlocking it than the change itself? :laugh:

[spacer]

From the looks of that screenshot, I really like the new look. It also wouldn't (shouldn't) be hard to allow users to customize which links appear in the row as opposed to the drop-down. Satisfying everyone's tastes. Though, in my opinion, "number of clicks" isn't the only metric for simplicity in a UI; so I'd be fine with the setup they have in the screenshot.

[BajiRav]

From the looks of that screenshot, I really like the new look. It also wouldn't (shouldn't) be hard to allow users to customize which links appear in the row as opposed to the drop-down. Satisfying everyone's tastes. Though, in my opinion, "number of clicks" isn't the only metric for simplicity in a UI; so I'd be fine with the setup they have in the screenshot.

You should look into some Windows 8 shutdown threads :laugh:

[LittleNeutrino Veteran]

I like the black bar. Anybody else just more interested in this cookie-hackish trick to unlocking it than the change itself? :laugh:

Yes the Cookie hacking was far more interesting than the change itself. I rather prefer the black bar myself.

Also if they are going to put a Calendar icon in there why cannot they do it to have the correct date?

[+Xinok Subscriber²]

I actually like the look. To make it better, I would love the ability to customize which "apps" are shown, as I don't use a lot of Google's services.

[KRazpopov]

It'd be interesting if these had some sort of customization and sort of acted like widgets. As in, you could have services show up as icons, but you could also set specific ones to take up a 3x1 space (3 icon row) and show you some info, for example:

• YouTube showing new videos from your subscriptions,
  
• Google Play showing if apps have updates available,
  
• GMail showing an unread message count on the icon, plus the last couple of unread emails,
  
• Calendar showing you your most recent appointment, etc...
  

[remixedcat]

I prefer the black bar, easy to see and easy on the eyes.

[xendrome]

This does the same thing, and is customize able, at least for Chrome - https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/shortcuts-for-google/baohinapilmkigilbbbcccncoljkdpnd?hl=en

[Growled Member]

I like the black bar but I am willing to give the new look a try too.

[MidnightDevil]

I'm one of the dudes who rather have the blackbar, it's sleek, elegant and pratical. Everything's just 1 click away.

My guess is that they could make it "optional" under a logged account.

[Knife Party]

looks good, me like

[xdot.tk]

I hate the future. 2 clicks instead of one? :angry:

[SliceOfLife]

Looks great, would be even better if it showed some live data like unread email count as mentioned above.