New Android 13 beta lets you customize app icons in a way it always should have
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The second beta for Android 13 QPR2 is currently rolling out for select Pixel phones with new experimental features and even some emojis.
If you just go to the official release notes (opens in new tab), you’d think it’s nothing but a patch for fixing things like a glitch in the UI that “caused the home screen to become unresponsive”. But notable Android expert Mashaal Rahman managed the entire beta in one long Twitter thread (opens in new tab). There’s one feature in particular that he and other Android watchers are pretty excited about, and that’s the ability to create monochrome app icons that mirror the Material You theme on Pixel phones. This way everything has a uniform appearance.
The feature is disabled by default, according to Rahman, so beta users will have to go into the phone’s settings and toggle ENABLE_FORCED_MONO_ICON (this is most likely a temporary name). When enabled, all apps that support the feature, including first- and third-party apps like Netflix, switch to the monochromatic look. Other reports (opens in new tab) do indicate that it ultimately depends on the app developers themselves whether they want to support the function or not. This could leave “Pixel owners in a weird place” where launcher icons are this hodgepodge of black and white and full color.
More changes
The only other notable new feature in the beta is a partial screen sharing menu for sharing or recording an app. It features a new scrollable interface on top of a list of apps that appear to work with the screen sharing tool.
As for the rest of the changes, they appear to be just updated versions of previously seen beta features. Rahman discovered a new shared library in the beta’s files called “aoc_audio_stereo_spatializer,” which he says refers to “enabling spatial audio through the phone’s stereo speakers.” Spatial audio was first suggested in the first Android 13 QPR2 beta. Unfortunately, Google is still playing its cards close to its chest, as much basic information about how spatial audio works on Android remains unknown.
Returning to the beta is the ability to control smart home devices from the lock screen, which was already in the works March 2022 (opens in new tab). The change this time around is that the beta will suggest you enable this feature if “you’re trying a [smart home] device from the lock screen a few times.”
As mentioned earlier, the QPR2 Beta 2 is available for download through the Android Beta program if you have one of the following Pixel phones: Pixel 4a, Pixel 5, 5athe base 6 model, 6 prof, 6athe base 7 modeland the Pixel 7 Pro. Keep in mind that it’s not perfect. There are multiple threads on the Android Beta subreddit (opens in new tab) about all the issues users have encountered after downloading QPE2 Beta 2, from icons not turning monochrome to Google Messages not working properly. If you encounter any of these issues, the company asks users to report outages through its Feedback app (opens in new tab).
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