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.
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