Android 14 could jazz up Material You with bold new color palettes
Introduced in Android 12, Material You dynamic color theming has become a core part of Android's UI identity. But while automatically generated custom themes do make for a lot of potential variety, the themes Android kicks out are often more drab than the wallpapers they're based on. But 9to5Google reports that could change in Android 14, with a new Fidelity theme style that's currently in development.
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This new style, referred to internally at Google as Fidelity (as in, faithful to your wallpaper's colors), isn't currently functional in the Android 14 beta, but enough of it is present in Google's open-source code that 9to5 was able to whip up an app that demonstrates the current state of the new style.
Unlike the existing Material You implementation, Fidelity themes will choose a base color that's present in your wallpaper and build the theme around that, rather than using colors that are close to your wallpaper's.
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Left: Current Material You implementation. Right: Fidelity. Note the bolder red. Source: 9to5Google
9to5 notes that this new style of theme can be a little hard to parse sometimes, particularly when Android grabs a dark color from your wallpaper and applies it to icons in dark-themed apps. Still, the feature is currently in development, and that sort of kink will hopefully be ironed out before this new option hits stable Android.
We're likely to hear more about this new theming option — and plenty about Android 14 generally — at Google I/O 2023. The event kicks off at 10 AM Pacific (7 Eastern) on Wednesday, May 10.
Source: Android Police
