The quarterly Pixel Feature Drops are one of the best parts of owning a Pixel phone.
While they aren’t always packed with useful updates, knowing there’s something new arriving like clockwork every three months keeps us engaged with our Pixel phones.
March’s Pixel Feature Drop was especially good, bringing updates to Now Playing, Circle to Search, and app icons.
It’s the app icon upgrade that caught my eye when reading the update notes. I’ve never been quite happy with how Android handles native app icon customization.
Themed Icons sounded fun in theory, but turned your home screen into a confusing minimalist mess in reality. App icon shapes were a neat upgrade, but the whole package felt limited compared to the variety of third-party app icon packs out there.
However, these icon packs have a severe problem; they can’t provide a custom icon for every app on the Play Store. Google has finally solved this problem, and you can probably guess how.
I’ve had enough — Google still has these 5 Pixel problems to sort out in 2026
My Pixel wish list for 2026
The natural evolution of Themed Icons
A history of trying to make our home screens look good
Themed Icons had a simple premise when they launched alongside Android 12 in 2021.
Google provided custom monochrome icons for some of its first-party apps, which your Pixel phone could color in to fit your phone’s theme.
It all fit into the Material You redesign, which aimed to create a cohesive visual identity for your phone. Select a color palette, and your Pixel would color in UI elements and compatible app icons to match.
However, the system only really works when most of your apps fit with the theming, so Google made it possible for third-party developers to create their own themed icons in Android 13.
These efforts came to a head with Android 16, when Google forced developers to agree to allow our phones to apply a monochromatic theme to all app icons.
So, as of 2025, you can have a Pixel phone with a fully unified color scheme. The problem? It’s boring at best and confusing at worst.
I tried using Themed Icons again after Google forced it on all apps, but I couldn’t get along. While identifying apps wasn’t a major problem (I tend only to have a few apps on my home screen at any one time), I hated how flat my home screen looked.
So after experimenting with the feature, I disabled it in favor of the app icons the developers wanted us to use.
But there was another problem. Themed Icons did not extend to the app drawer. Switching from themed icons to the original icons was jarring and went against the very reason Themed Icons exist.
So now, in 2026, with a supercharged Themed Icons feature, are things any better? No, in fact, they’re worse.
New custom icons seem like a great idea at first
A fix to the generic Themed Icons feature?
In theory, the new custom icon feature seems like it solves all my problems.
If you haven’t tried it out yet, Google now provides a set of adjustable presets for icon customization. They’re powered by AI, so you can choose a theme, and it will automatically apply.
Here are a few examples of this feature in action.
Let’s talk about the good first. This feature did an impressive job of customizing the third-party apps on my phone. There were a few exceptions, but these weren’t significant enough to worry about.
Some of the effects were excellent (the primary color setting for the Easel theme works particularly well), and those that didn’t were mostly due to them clashing with my wallpaper of choice.
But herein lies the problem. Where Themed Icons almost blended too well with my Pixel phone’s UI, these AI icons clash more than the originals ever did.
It’s a mess, unless you want to put in serious work
The first issue with AI-generated icons is theming.
While I don’t expect the more chaotic styles like Cookie to match my phone’s wallpaper and UI, simpler themes like Treasure are easy to theme around.
If I want a coherent theme, I have to select a matching wallpaper by eye, then toggle through the theming options to find a palette that applies the right color to the UI elements.
I’ve never been particularly frustrated by the randomness of Material You’s theming before, but that changed when trying to make it match the AI-generated icons.
Naturally, Google presents this feature in its ideal light
The second issue with AI-generated icons is that they don’t extend to the phone’s app drawer, just like Themed Icons.
As they aren’t themed, I had to manually tweak my wallpaper and phone theming to find a rough match. It’s a lot of work, and ruined whenever I open my app drawer.
The third issue is the randomness of AI-generated artwork. As I mentioned earlier, I liked the Easel effect most.
However, while some apps (notably Google’s own) fit neatly into this theme, it turned others into a confusing splodge of color. Fossify’s Clock app was unrecognizable; I had to squint to see the vague outline of a clock among the dark colors.
When good ideas don’t match up with reality
AI seems like the perfect way to unify all your apps, no matter how niche or obscure they are. However, the reality fails to match expectations as with most AI tools.
I could redesign my home screen to make these icons work, but is the loss of productivity worth a few cookie-shaped icons?
For now, if you want coherent theming, stick with the Minimal setting. AI-generated icons aren’t there yet.
