Get Android 12 style
Android 12 - it’s personal.
Android 12 is billed as “the biggest design change in Android’s history”, and many of the changes are focused on visual design aspects and personalisation rather than individual functions.
Any colour you want, as long as it’s pastel
On Android 12 you are able to completely personalise your OS colours and widgets. Using what Google calls “colour extraction” in its Material You design language, your choice of wallpaper determines which colours are applied across the entire phone or tablet. In practice muted shades and pastel versions of the core colours usually dominate.
Android 12 Wallpaper
So can you get a similar look on an earlier version of Android? As this goes beyond our phone’s current OS it was time to raid the Google Play Store for third party apps that might add the new features.
The simplest style app we found was Android 12 Wallpapers 4K. This free ad-supported app provides a small selection of Android 12-style wallpapers that you can set for your Lock or Home screens. About every second time you select a wallpaper you have to wait for a full screen ad to run, but apart from that it could not be simpler.
It’s Time
The Android 12 clock has a new look, many new looks in fact. And whatever style you choose, its display depends on what it’s sharing the screen with. For example, if there are several notifications on your screen the clock is smaller and out of the way. Clear the notifications and the clock expands to a central position.
There are a number of apps on the Play Store with potential to give you an Android 12-style clock, but the simplest we found is called Android Clock Widgets by developer Mohamed Ibrahem.
The free version has a small number of digital and nicely animated analogue styles available on an ad-supported page, with more styles and colours available in a premium version. You can position and size your chosen clock widget wherever you like on your home screen/s, but there’s no automatic resizing. Still, it provides a selection of Android 12 style clocks for free, so no complaints.
Notification Tiles and Quick Settings
Rather than the old swipe-down list, notifications in Android 12 are displayed in rectangular tiles with rounded corners. It’s a neat look, and easy to use. Rounded rectangles have also taken over from small round icons in the Quick Settings menu. So when you swipe down from the top of the screen you see two columns of Quick Settings tiles, rather than a larger number of settings icons. It looks good, but the jury is still out on whether it’s worth it given the smaller number of items you can directly access.
Getting these new shapes and colours on our old Android is
possible, but it’s a little more complex. Pretty much every app we tried for this requires a KWGT Kustom app to be installed. In this family of apps from Kustom Industries everything starts with a K–but so far we haven’ t found any connection with the similarly K-keen Kardashian family.
We downloaded the free version of KWGT Kustom Widget Maker app from the Play Store. There is a Pro version and, according to the listing, buying it will remove ads, provide additional features, and last but not least, “Defend Earth from alien invasion”!
As much as the world needs saving, we figured the free version would do the job for now.
KWGT Kustom Widget Maker comes with a number of premade widgets (Komponents), but to get Android 12-style widgets it’s back to the Play Store so see what’s available. After trawling through many wannabes, we opted for the Material U app for KWGT by Intik. Like many of these apps there was no free version, but the reviews were good and the price just $1.39, so for once we broke the ‘free’ rule.
Material U included a range of Android 12 style widgets – with still more clocks! These widgets are implemented through the KWGT Kustom Widget Maker, and tapping on a widget opens that app. So far so good, except for the little “PRO” symbol displayed next to the widget. Should have checked the fine print - it required the K Pro version to work. We took the plunge and invested a further $7.99. After all, it also saves the world!
There is a learning kurve, oops, curve, but this combination of K apps lets you create your own Android 12-style widgets on any phone running Android 5.0 or later. They won’t automatically adopt your device theme colours, but a simple manual input of the two key kolours does that job. With a bit of effort, you kan kreate a kompletely kustom look.
Scrolling screenshots
Ever want to take a screenshot including more than fits on the screen, a web page perhaps? A number of phones, including Samsung models, have a facility for this, as do several apps, but Android 12 has it built in. If you would like this capability on your device we suggest checking out the Long Screen Shot Capture app by The Hex Coders. Your long shots can be saved as images or PDFs, and can include photos, articles, web books, social media feeds and more.
One handed operation
Android 12 addresses the problem of reaching all areas of large screens when only using only one hand. We found two effective apps for this at the Play Store. For Samsung owners, One Hand Operation + from Samsung Electronics is highly regarded, and for everyone else (and cat lovers) there is One Hand Operation Support (Free) by Suirenyou. A simple swipe on the cat icon drops the top half of the screen into easy reach.
Privacy
App permissions in Android 12 are more granular, with the ability to give limited permission rather than all or nothing. For example, apps can be given your approximate location rather than precisely where you are. As Google says: “weather apps don’t need your precise location to offer an accurate forecast.”
We did not find any way to add such fine control to earlier versions of Android, but did find some interesting privacy apps such as Privacy Indicators - iOS14, Android 12 indicators from Apps By Nitish.