Android 15 could bring back fun icon shapes

One of the best things about the Android operating system is how customizable it is. If you don’t like the stock launcher app on your phone, you can choose from many other Android home screens available on the Play Store. However, most people stick to the default launcher, which on Pixel phones is the Pixel Launcher. A few years ago, Pixel Launcher had a feature that let you customize the font, design, accent color, and shape of icons on your home screen, but Google got rid of some of these as it simplified Android’s customization options. Thankfully, Google is at least looking to bring back icon shape customization in the next quarterly platform release of Android 15.

Tips Nail Sadykov discovered that the under-development version of the Pixel wallpaper app (AKA Wallpaper & Style) now includes a new “app shape and layout” menu in Android 15 QPR2 Beta 1. This menu has two tabs: Form and Layout. The Layout tab has the familiar options for changing the layout of the home screen grid, while the Shape tab has six different options for changing the shape of the home screen icons. Here’s a shot of the new “app shape and layout” menu that we managed to see on our own Pixel phone running the beta:

Unfortunately, this feature does not currently work in Android 15 QPR2 Beta 1. This is likely due to the build missing the runtime resource overlays (RROs) that would actually change the icon shape. Android 11 also used RROs to change the icon shape, but Google removed them in Android 12 as it simplified customization around Material You.

Considering how small a change this is, I don’t think Google will stick with it for next year’s Android 16 release. However, it’s possible that it will do so anyway, as the under-development version of the Pixel wallpaper app is still far from finished. Meanwhile, if you want to change app icons on your Pixel phone right now, you need to install a third-party launcher or icon pack.