With Android 13, Material You can automatically adapt the icons of third-party apps to your wallpaper. Guaranteed effect. Here’s how to take advantage of it.
Material You is one of the coolest recent features. Introduced with Android, it allows you to adjust the interface elements of your smartphone according to your wallpaper. If your image displays a predominance of green and black, for example, the compatible interface elements will adapt according to these colors. A simple, yet very effective idea that makes the overall design of your device more cohesive.
Third-party app icons adapt to your theme in Android 13
App icons are a big part of the Android interface, these also change depending on the wallpaper. But on Android 12, only certain apps were compatible with the feature, and it also depended a lot on your phone. If you had a Pixel running Android 12, for example, only Google apps saw their icons change. Gmail and YouTube then synced with your wallpaper, making other apps stand out even more. Same problem for Samsung Galaxy owners.
Design purists will certainly be pleased to hear that with Android 13, Google is extending Material You support to third-party app icons. As long as your favorite apps are compatible, of course, and the feature is activated in your settings, the icons will adapt to your wallpaper and the theme of your device.
To date, many major applications are already compatible. Some Google apps are still missing, such as Stadia, Play Games, and YouTube Studio. Just like very popular third-party apps – Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Netflix, and Spotify, for example -. Android 13 is still very young, and not available on many smartphones. As the OS reaches a larger market share, compatible applications will be more numerous.
Android 13 is still in beta testing on Samsung devices with One UI 5.0, so Galaxy owners can’t yet take advantage of Material You icons on third-party apps. And while most Samsung apps are currently supported, no Google apps are.
How to Enable Material You Icons?
If you don’t see these apps changing with your wallpaper and you have the optimized versions for Android 13, you need to activate the feature. Go to Settings > Wallpaper and style and activate “Themed icons”. Return to your smartphone’s home screen and the icons should change automatically.
