With this month’s rollout of Android 16 QPR3 and its related Pixel Drop, anybody rocking one in every of Google’s rising assortment of Pixels is lastly gaining access to one thing we’ve waited on for a very long time: customized app icons. Sadly, utilizing this function is locked behind a fundamental set of generative AI instruments, and in comparison with what you’ll discover on different launchers — from each first and third-party builders — it’s simply not adequate.
I’ve been attempting out Google’s AI-generated icons on my Pixel 10a over the previous week or so, and sadly in my eyes, the issues actually begin showing proper from the start of the method. After this replace, you’ll discover 5 customized icon kinds within the Wallpaper & Model menu in your gadget: Scribbles, Cookies, Easel, Treasure, and Stardust. Deciding on one means that you can frivolously customise your shade packs with a handful of pre-selected shade choices, however identical to with Google’s genAI-based wallpaper creator, you’re working inside some fairly strict guardrails. Cookies and Stardust are, sadly, utterly locked to their pre-built colours.
When you’ve chosen your color and style, Google previews 9 of your homescreen app icons, utilizing a mixture of first and third-party choices to present you some sense of what this type appears to be like like. Most of those labored fairly nicely on first go, particularly on the first-party aspect. However in my restricted testing, a few of my most-used apps, together with Apple Music, Pocket Casts, and Letterboxd, had pretty tough designs. It looks like any icon with predominantly round icons actually struggled in being correctly generated in a recognizable trend; Letterboxd, for instance, typically had two of the three circles in its icon disappear.
For those who don’t like what’s been generated, tapping on an icon preview means that you can give suggestions or regenerate the look. Nonetheless, as is commonly the case with AI-generated artwork, its second and third makes an attempt typically both moved within the mistaken route or echoed the design I already disliked. And with out the flexibility to specify what you want fastened with a immediate, you’re principally caught attempting to regenerate with the hope that you just’ll discover one thing that doesn’t crumble beneath scrutiny.
What’s much more annoying, nonetheless, is the lack to see all of your homescreen icons till you’ve created, downloaded, and saved your new pack. You may’t initially see past these 9 chosen icons, which implies the one technique to modify your icons is to return to Wallpaper & Model after you’ve utilized your modifications. There at present isn’t a technique to, say, regenerate an icon design proper from the homescreen via a long-press motion, making your complete factor really feel slightly extra tedious than it in any other case must be. Some packs look like extra profitable than others at nailing the look of your apps, so your mileage might range relying on which type you begin off with.
I’ve been ready what seems like ages for Google to lastly convey some further customization to its Pixel launcher, however simply as I don’t imagine AI-generated wallpapers are a superb alternative for items of artwork from actual human creators, I don’t suppose these icons substitute conventional icon packs. These are, at finest, auto-generated themes that take inspiration out of your pre-existing icons so as to add new components to what’s already there, however they do little or no to make your homescreen really feel extra unified round a particular feel and look. For that, you’re nonetheless higher off with a third-party launcher and the icon pack of your selecting.
Additionally they fail to enhance on a few of the shortcomings that precise icon packs already face, save for lacking out on probably underused or area of interest functions. Google’s system can’t even spot and apply modifications as new icon designs roll out; for instance, after a latest Maps replace modified the look of its pin-shaped brand, my Pixel saved the outdated design as a result of I’d used AI to regenerate this artwork type.
It’s potential that this function actually is the way forward for Android customization, particularly on Pixel, the place it’s all the time been troublesome to discover a system that works with out some varied complications. However regardless of my need for a extra customized homescreen expertise on Google’s {hardware}, I’m simply unsure that is something greater than a novelty — an opinion that, sadly, is dogging loads of AI options on cell lately.
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