Android 14 could bring bolder Material You color options

Google Pixel 6 Pro Display Home Green
(Image credit: Nick Sutrich / Android Central)

What you need to know

  • Google Design appears to have teased a color upgrade coming for Material You in Android 14.
  • Colors in this teaser appear bolder as opposed to the pale, more pastel-style of color options available for Android phones today.
  • Through a test, it was found that a color picker would let users choose their own primary design color and it would remain even in dark mode.

There appear to be plans for Google to update its Material You design language for Android 14.

As spotted by 9to5Google, the Google Design team on Twitter posted a thirty-second video about Material You which contained some notable color alterations. The colors in the video appear much bolder and brighter than the more pastel-style colors of the design language today. While the updated colors aren't available in Android 14's test, 9to5 unearthed the styles in Google's open-source code.

The provided demo showcased a simple color picker, allowing the user to choose what color they'd like their phone to be adorned with. Other included options seen in the photos could give users the chance to really fine-tune their phone's design and find the right color for them. This updated color language would continue to enable Android 14 to pull colors from your wallpaper, as well, much like how phones running Android 13 or 12 would do currently.

Further testing showed that even when using a phone's dark mode, the primary color of your choice will remain. Other elements of the phone will change (such as text) to better accommodate your desired UI theme.

Lastly, 9to5 speculates this change in Material You's coloring, from pale to bold, could be a result of the "Fidelity" style option. Its intention is to ensure that a user's preferred primary color is actually used in the final result of their phone's UI.

Google recently rolled out its Android 14 Beta 1.1 build to users in the program and it came packed with bug fixes. With Google I/O 2023 a couple of weeks away, big reveals and Android development progress will be among the topics discussed. However, with a Material You color change teased like this, perhaps Google will show a bit more of what's truly in store for users.

The company posted its sessions list yesterday and one of the topics to be discussed is "What's new in Material Design." This portion follows the Developer keynote (after Pichai's Keynote), giving interested parties insight into "the latest evolution to our design language, Material You, and a look at our vision of the future of design systems."

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Nickolas Diaz
News Writer

Nickolas is always excited about tech and getting his hands on it. Writing for him can vary from delivering the latest tech story to scribbling in his journal. When Nickolas isn't hitting a story, he's often grinding away at a game or chilling with a book in his hand.