Explaining Android
Themed Icons were launched last year but the Android 13 update finally makes it available to 3rd-party developers to support their applications.
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Video Description
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While Google has been working on expanding its Material You theming options with the Android 13 update, one of the more interesting features looks to be something new called Themed Icons.
Many of us in the community have used custom launchers that come with icon pack support for years but Google has refused to build this type of feature into the OS. Even with the upcoming launch of Android 13, the company still hasn’t included support for icon packs in the stock Pixel Launcher.
Instead, the new update to Android due later this year expands on an Android 12 feature called Themed Icons by bringing support for 3rd-party apps into the fold. It’s currently in beta access only as there are some limitations while things are being tested. This feature does not seem to be adding support for custom icon packs like many of us are used to.
Instead, it looks to change all of the icons to custom ones set by the developer and made to support Android’s Material You theming system.
We can find this option by long-pressing on an empty space of the Home Screen and then diving into the Wallpaper & Style option that we’re used to with Material You. Now, we just scroll down a bit and you should see a toggle for the new Themed Icons feature. By default this feature is disabled but we can turn it on with a simple tap.
We an even see a preview of these changes in the Wallpaper area here at the top. And the design of these icons will change whether you have Dark Mode enabled or not.
Now, we can’t say whether or not this will be the start of full Icon Pack support like we’re used to with custom launchers. . .but it is a nice way to get your icons styled in a similar way. That way your home screen looks nice rather than each icon having its own color palette.
One downfall of this feature is that the developer themselves need to update their application in order to support this feature. The developer needs to select a monochrome icon for Material You when building the app in order for their app icon to support the Themed Icons feature of Android 13.
I hope this is something the majority of Android app developers get behind. . .but as we’ve seen from previous Android updates. . .this isn’t something I’ll be holding my breath over. Especially due to the limitations of this feature at launch. Google only allowed some of its 1st-party apps to be themed in this way with Android 12 and it isn’t until the Android 13 that we see the feature being opened up to 3rd-party developers.
A major limitation that I’m learning about is that Themed Icons for Android 13 are going to launch as a feature that is exclusive to Google Pixel smartphones running Android 13. This is going to delay 3rd-party developer support even longer as some will decide it isn’t worth implementing since it’s only available on a few percentage of the Android user base.
Still, it’s nice to see Google finally adding a way to theme the icons in a way that actually looks coherent with the other app icons in the Home Screen. Let’s hope this feature continues to be worked on with an option to show these themed icons in other places of the operating system (like the app drawer and recents page).
Step by Step Tutorial
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1. Intro [00:00]
2. Open the “Wallpapers & Styes” area [00:41]
3. Enable the “Themed Icons” toggle [01:57]
4. What Themed Icons look like [03:06]
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