Now that Google has brought us a dark theme option for our Android devices (and most Google apps), you finally have the option to switch between light and dark. But if you want to have more color themes, you don’t have much choice in that department. Soon though, you may have the option to make your smartphone, particularly apps, a bit more colorful. Android 12 will reportedly bring a deeper theming system, including choosing the colors of particular supported apps.
9 to 5 Google says they have seen information pointing to Google working on a native theming system for Android 12. This will allow users to choose a primary color and an accent color that will be seen on the software on your smartphone, or at least those parts and apps that will be supported. This means you can see more colorful background color for notifications and parts like the Quick Settings area. Well, that is if you prefer it to be colorful.
That doesn’t mean of course that your phone will look like a rainbow. 9 to 5 Google created some mockups on what they think it will look like when the colored theme will be enabled. They showed what your phone’s settings would probably look like if you chose the “dim” blue from Twitter as your main theme color and then the “Space” from Pixel devices as an accent. The colors don’t “scream” and are just a nice muted color. They also tried a mockup using a green Material Design color palette and that one is just a little bit louder.
The colors available will probably vary per brand and maybe per model but there will probably not be an option to create or add your own color scheme. The good news though is that the theming system can also be accessible to other developers of Android apps. This means an app can be configured to match the theme or color scheme that a user chooses for their supported smartphone. You won’t be stuck anymore with just light or dark.
Android 12 is still in very early development so we have no idea yet when and how this will be adapted. Developers will get first dibs on the early update anyway when they roll out the Developer Preview version. Rumor has it that this could happen as early as February.