The Ultimate Guide To Customizing The Ultimate Android Home Screen

One of the best things about Android is how flexible its interface is: customizing your home screen to suit your usage habits and preferences only takes a few taps, and the possibilities are endless. How are these setups created, It’s usually a combination of carefully paired elements, and most of them are easily available from Google Play. Let’s look at all the things you can do to pretty up your Android interface with little to no effort. You probably knew this already: you can switch up the background of your home screen by using just about any image stored on your device. Some versions of Android will let you set the image as either your home screen or lock screen; if you don’t see an option, it’ll default to your home screen. For best results, you’ll want to use images that are of the same or higher resolution than your screen.

It’s worth noting that you don’t have to restrict yourself to portrait-orientation images; if you use a landscape-orientation image, you can scroll through its length as you move between home screens. Wondering where to find beautiful wallpapers, Google Play has a ton of wallpaper apps that include hundreds of backgrounds - often for free - in a simple interface with categories and a shortcut to apply them. You’ll want to start with either Google’s own Wallpapers app - which includes a handy background rotation function - or Backdrops, which comes with a fantastic selection of wallpapers that you won’t find anywhere else. You can also look for wallpapers on Reddit: the community at r/androidthemes frequently shares quality backgrounds. Alternatively, search Google Images with a generic keyword and the exact resolution of your screen: here’s what you get when you look for backgrounds for a 1080p device. Android also supports live wallpapers, which are animated or respond to your touches and swipes. While there are loads of these available on Google Play, you’ll want to check their reviews to be sure that they don’t consume too much battery life.

I prefer live wallpapers that feature subtle animations or visual effects. Google Pixel 2: there are a few gorgeous wallpapers with overhead views of Monument Valley, hills in Hawaii, and a beautiful coastline that come with Google’s new flagship. If you don’t have a Pixel 2, you’ll need to download the Wallpapers app, sideload this APK, and then find them in the Live Wallpapers section on your phone. If you’d like to generate your own wallpapers, give Tapet a go. It lets you browse through a wide range of patterns and apply various color schemes to them, with just a swipe. Once you’re happy with your creation, you can save and set the background as your wallpaper, or share it with a friend. The free version should keep you plenty busy, but you might want to pay and unlock the additional patterns available with the Premium tier. Finally, there’s Muzei, a fantastic app that pulls in backgrounds from sources like Reddit and Unsplash and displays them with a bit of blur; double-tap the home screen and it’ll clear right up for you to get a better look.

Of course, you can choose to disable that effect if you like, but the blur does help your home screen icons and widgets stand out a bit more. One of the things you’ll notice in some of the best Android home screen setups is the consistency across the look of the backgrounds, widgets, and icons. The last bit is usually fairly easy to achieve, thanks to icon packs which generally follow a theme or visual style, and can be applied to all your apps at once. There are plenty of high-quality icon packs available on Google Play either for free or a reasonable fee, and many of them come with thousands of icons to cover a wide range of apps. Whether you’re looking for minimalist monochrome icons or a splashy Material Design-inspired set, the Play store will leave you spoilt for choice. Where should you start with icons, I personally prefer simple ones with a unified design language so as to keep my home screen nice and tidy, so I usually go with Lines, Min, Flight Lite, or TwoPixel. For a more vibrant look, I’ve taken a liking to Frozy, Perfect, Crispy, Phix, Darkmatter, Minimale, and Material Cards.