An early alleged leak of Android 12 shows an idea we all hoped we would not image. We thought we’d see Google test a wallpaper-based theme engine that would stylize parts of the Android system UI by fetching the colors in the background on your home screen. As it turns out, Google is indeed working on such a feature, and the first look at this is here.
Discovered by developer @ kdrag0n, we can see some examples of how Google will use wallpapers to customize the color of certain parts of the system in Android 12. Internally called “monet” and only behind the scenes available in Android 12 Developer Preview 1, the screenshots show how a wallpaper will affect the notification screen and its various elements, as well as the color palette for the entire Android settings menu.
In this first example, a green wallpaper is used on the (new) lock screen, which colors notifications to a green color. When you wipe the notification area, you also see a green matte background, a green color change in the quick setting titles, and a green brightness shift at the top.
For additional examples, @ kdrag0n showed multiple backgrounds and the notification screen associated with Google’s new system theme idea. Below you have themes that draw blue and purple as the accent or highlight color.
Finally, here is the change we need to see in an area like Settings. The main settings page may look like the “Silky Home” interface. We showed you how to tune in last week, but if you dive into specific sections, the background for each will change depending on the color that the system drew from your wallpaper. Below are a handful of examples of how Google plans to overshadow settings areas and even change their sliders.
Where we do not see it going yet, it is in Google to make a final notch by also changing the system of icon colors based on the background. The initial Android 12 leak just showed it, but we’ll probably need an update to app icons or Google to reveal their plans there before that can happen.
No matter what, Android 12 has a number of great ideas to make the theme a beautiful experience that is unique to each user. I can not wait until they enable us all to start playing it.