Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google may be working on new AI-powered icon customization features for Pixel phones.
- This feature could solve the inconsistent look of the current “Themed icons” feature, which many apps still do not support.
- Code discovered in a recent update points to new “AI icon” and “Create” style options.
Google Pixel devices offer many unique software features, but they lag behind when it comes to basic customization options, at least out of the box. For instance, to change your app icons, you have to ditch the stock Pixel Launcher — and its excellent universal search bar — for a third-party alternative. Fortunately, Google is working on a fix that could let you create custom icon themes using AI, finally improving home screen customization on Pixels.
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Currently, Pixel devices have a single icon customization option: Themed icons. This feature tints app icons to match the dominant color of your wallpaper, but it only works for apps whose developers have provided a monochromatic icon. Unfortunately, many popular apps still haven’t adopted this, resulting in an inconsistent home screen with a hodgepodge of themed and unthemed icons.
C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
To solve this, Google has a few options. It could continue waiting for developers to add support, but that “wait and see” approach hasn’t been effective, even three years after the feature was introduced. Another option is to force developers to provide monochromatic icons, but the company likely wants to avoid potential backlash. The third path is to bypass developers by deploying an algorithm to automatically tint existing icons. While this can be challenging to implement perfectly for every icon, it’s an approach that companies like Apple and Nothing have already adopted with varying success.
Back in early 2023, I discovered that Google was experimenting with a feature to automatically generate monochromatic icons for apps that don’t supply them. While that feature never launched, it seems the company is revisiting the idea.
Digging through the latest Android Canary build released last week, I found new code strings in the Wallpaper & Style app — the hub for all home screen customization on Pixel devices. These strings suggest you’ll be able to choose from four distinct styles for your app icons:
- Default: Leaves app icons unmodified.
- Minimal: Uses the monochromatic version of app icons.
- AI icon: Use AI to generate a custom icon style automatically (?)
- Create: Lets you build your own custom icon style (?)
Here are the relevant strings from the app:
Code
Style
Default
Minimal
AI icon
Create By inspecting the code of the Wallpaper & Style app, we confirmed that these four options are distinct and that the “Minimal” style corresponds to the existing monochrome icon feature. However, we couldn’t determine how the “AI icon” or “Create” options work, as they are not yet implemented in this version of the app. It’s possible these features are currently limited to internal builds or are part of another app entirely.
In addition to icon styles, Google is also working on letting you customize icon shapes, a feature we previously demonstrated. As for when Google will launch these new icon customization options, we don’t have a clear answer. We recently spotted evidence that Google is developing theme packs for Pixel phones, so it’s likely these new icon options will launch as part of that broader theme support.
If you don’t want to wait for Google to roll these features out, you can install a third-party Android launcher on your Pixel that supports custom icon packs.
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