Google Contacts is rolling out a smarter new look for contact profiles

Google Contacts is arguably one of the company’s most underrated Android apps, but it’s still been getting serious developer attention over the past year, thanks to the often-overlooked, ultra-utilitarian role it plays. It brought some nice new features to it Calling Cardsand work is actively underway make them even better. Today we’re checking out another corner of Contacts that’s slated for an update as Google tests a new look for profile pages.

There is a small bloat issue with Contacts at the moment. It was easy enough to make everything look nice when we just stored names and email addresses, but there’s quite a bit more information to include in your modern Contact profile. What it looks like today:

Admittedly, it gets the job done, but it’s also a bit of a stretch. Could there be a better way to organize things?

Well, in Contacts version 4.75.27.882333999, we discovered an updated layout that starts grouping things a little differently. For example, instead of a separate “Tags” section buried at the bottom, it moves prominently to the top – as you’d expect a tag of some sort to be.

Similarly, rather than existing as a separate item, we now see the weather forecast for where our contact is located along with their location – completely responsive.

It looks like Google is rethinking its approach to the About section here. Instead, in this release, we see Google getting ready to split things up by moving the birthday to the main data block. Then, if you have any notes for the contact, they will start to show separately below.

Each of these changes sounds like a step in the right direction to us, and together they show that Google is trying to keep Contact profiles as information-rich as ever, while making them a bit more optimized, especially at a glance.

Currently, none of this is visible in the app yet, but Google may choose to make this new UI live in a future update. We will monitor any further changes.