An alleged early leak of Android 12 showed an idea that we all hoped we weren’t imagining. We thought we were seeing Google testing a wallpaper-based theme engine that would stylize parts of the Android system’s UI by getting colors on the home screen wallpaper. It turns out that Google is actually working on such a feature and the first reviews are here.
Discovered by the developer @ kdrag0n, we can see several examples of how Google will use wallpapers to adjust the color of certain areas of the system in Android 12. Internally called “monet” and available only behind the scenes in Android 12 Developer Preview 1, the screenshots show how a wallpaper will affect the notification shade and its various elements, as well as the color cast of the entire Android settings menu.
In this first example, a green wallpaper is used on the (new) lock screen, which then tints the notifications with a greenish color. Swiping down in the notification area also shows a matte green background, a green color change in the quick setting headings, and a green brightness slider at the top.
For additional examples, @ kdrag0n displayed several wallpapers and the notification tab that accompanies them with Google’s new idea for a system theme. Below, you have themes pulling both blue and purple as the highlight or highlight color.
Finally, here’s the change we should see when in an area like Settings. The main settings page may look like the “Silky Home” user interface that we showed you how to enable last week, but when you dive into specific sections, the background of each one will change depending on the color the system extracted from your wallpaper. Wall. Below are some examples of how Google plans to shade configuration areas and even change its sliders.
We haven’t seen it happen yet, but Google has increased everything by one final step, causing the system to also change the colors of the icons to match based on the wallpaper. This initial leak of Android 12 showed just that, but we probably need an update for app icons or for Google to reveal its plans before this can happen.
No matter what happens, Android 12 has a number of great ideas to make your theme a beautiful, unique experience for each user. I can’t wait until they let us activate this and start playing.