You may force-theme all of the icons on your home screen in Android 13 QPR2 Beta 2

If you've signed up for the Android beta program, Android 13 QPR2 Beta 2 has just arrived on your Pixel phone. Other than the much-welcomed addition of new emoji, there aren't many features visible at first glance, but there are some other changes hidden in the code and behind feature flags. One of these is a choice that many people have been eagerly awaiting: Google is testing a flag that requires customized icons for all apps on your phone.

The new option is hidden behind a feature flag with the name ENABLE FORCED MONO ICON and the explanation "Enable the ability to generate monochrome icons, if it is not provided by the app," as discovered by Mishaal Rahman and the Google News Telegram channel. This does exactly what it says on the tin: when enabled, the Pixel Launcher converts standard app icons into monochrome equivalents that can be themed in accordance with your background. This happens when an app doesn't provide a themed icon of their own. Even for those apps that do not currently support the option, the end result is a home screen that solely has themed icons.

For straightforward icons like the MiX and Ring shown by Mishaal Rahman, the technique works wonderfully. However, things get a little messier when your home screen is made up of app icons that are more elaborately designed, like Instagram with its vibrant background. The Google News Telegram channel serves as an excellent illustration of this, with apps like VK, the Russian Post, and MTS still seeming out of place due to their monochrome backgrounds. Providing developers with their own appropriately themed icons may be encouraged if Google follows through with this compulsory theming option.

Google presently modifies shortcuts you add to your home screen using a similar methodology. While this is fantastic for more general options, it can appear strange if you have contact cards, such as those from Telegram, that transform the profile photographs of your friends and family into themed icons. This is obviously still a work in progress.

This flag may have been included by Google with the Android 13 QPR 2 Beta 2, but this does not guarantee that it will be included in the final, stable release of the new Android 13 version in March 2023. A feature flag is used for trials that might not work well, and it's probable that well-known app developers would complain loudly if their apps aren't presented in the way they would like. If we're lucky, the forced mono icons might join the forced dark theme option in the developer options, which is still handy if you want all of your apps to have black backgrounds even if they don't have a specific dark mode.