Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority
Pixel phones haven’t traditionally been known for providing extensive customization options, but that perception is changing as Google adds new home and lock screen personalization features in the latest version of Android. The introduction of Material 3 Expressive in the first quarterly release of Android 16 has dramatically overhauled the look and feel of Android on Pixel phones, bringing a fresh, more vibrant experience across the board.
Still, Pixel phones lag behind some of their competitors in ease of customization. While many rival devices let you change the entire look and feel of the UI with single-click custom themes, Pixel phones lack this convenience, requiring you to manually configure the home and lock screens to achieve your desired look.
Fortunately, that could change in the near future. Back in May, we revealed that Google is working on theme packs to help you customize your Pixel phone. We surfaced a new “Themes” entry in the “Wallpaper & Style” app on Pixel phones, and while it wasn’t functional, its description provided some crucial information. Our discovery confirmed that Google is working on “Pixel themes” consisting of multiple customization options bundled in packs, but details were scarce at the time.
Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority
In recent weeks, however, we’ve learned more about how the Pixel themes feature will work. Specifically, we found evidence in the Android 16 QPR2 betas that Google is developing a new system feature called Theme Manager. This provides the foundation for Pixel themes by improving how system themes are handled in Android. Here’s how. You’re reading the Authority Insights Newsletter, a weekly newsletter that reveals some new facet of Android that hasn’t been reported on anywhere else. If you’re looking for the latest scoops, the hottest leaks, and breaking news on Google’s Android operating system and other mobile tech topics, then we’ve got you covered.
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How Google is evolving theming support in Android Before this year, the last time Google overhauled Android’s UI was in 2021 with the release of Android 12, which introduced the original version of Material Design 3, also known as Material You. The centerpiece of Material You was “dynamic color,” a theming engine that automatically extracts colors from your wallpaper and applies them across the entire user interface — from the Quick Settings and volume panel to compatible third-party apps.
The process that Material You follows to generate a theme can be broken down into three parts: Extracting colors. When you apply a wallpaper, Android analyzes it to determine the dominant color. This color is used as a “seed” from which five unique tonal palettes (three accents and two neutrals) are generated. Each of these palettes contains 13 colors of different luminance values. Applying colors. Android then replaces the system color values that apps read from with these 65 new colors. It does this by generating Runtime Resource Overlays (RROs), which allow Android to replace resource values on the fly without rebooting the device. Storing preferences. Finally, Android stores the user’s theme preferences. This includes the source of the seed color (the lock screen wallpaper, home screen wallpaper, or a preset), the theme style (which variation of the dynamic color algorithm was used), and the time the theme was applied.
Google Dynamic color use in Android's System UI.
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