Phones that ship with Android 12, too
Google is very excited about dynamic color theming. Material You is one of the most fun parts of Android 12 on the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, and Google is working on bringing similar theming to many of its other products, like Chrome OS and even Search. It looks like it’s about to start showing up in even more places in the near future: According to a trusted source, dynamic theming is soon going to be a requirement for any Android phone or tablet that ships with or upgrades to Android 12 — if it hopes to use Google apps, anyway.
Referencing internal Google documentation, our source says that starting on March 14, Google will require that any new Android 12-based software builds submitted for Google Mobile Services (GMS) approval implement a dynamic theming engine that meets certain requirements. Specifically, the engine will need to be able to, based on a single source color, generate five tonal palettes that can adapt on the fly — three accent palettes and two neutral, the same five used in Material You theming on Pixel phones. This consistency is important for developers looking to implement dynamic theming in their own apps.
While the Monet engine that powers Material You’s colorful look started life as a Pixel 6 exclusive, Android 12L is set to bring it fully into AOSP. That means that, to qualify for GMS, manufacturers will be able to either create their own compliant dynamic theming engines or implement Google’s Monet directly.
In the latter case, OEMs will either need to base new builds on Android 12L or port a handful of patches from Android 12L back into their prospective Android 12-based builds. According to Mishaal Rahman, some manufacturers like Xiaomi and Motorola have already started porting those patches from Google’s internal Android 12L repository. Samsung’s Android 12-based One UI 4, on the other hand, features wallpaper-based dynamic theming that’s not powered by Monet, but our source tells us it uses very similar logic.
This isn’t the first new GMS requirement we’ve seen in recent months. In December, we learned of a GMS requirement that Android 12 settings menus include a “Safety & emergency” page. GMS includes a number of apps that are essential to many Android users, like Chrome, Google Maps, and YouTube.
Read Next
About The Author
