Here’s an early look at Google’s revamped Pixel wallpaper app in Android 15 QPR1

Robert Triggs / Android Authority

Even though the stable Android 15 update hasn’t been released yet, Google is already beta testing its first quarterly platform release. The first beta of Android 15 QPR1 was released late last week, giving us a sneak peek at what to expect in the December Android 15 update. While I was digging through the release, I found evidence that Google might overhaul the design of the Pixel wallpaper app. Here’s an early look at what the Pixel wallpaper app might look like in a future Android 15 release.

The Pixel wallpaper app is where you go to apply Google Pixel wallpapers on your device. It’s also where you go to customize the lock screen shortcuts, tweak the lock screen clock style, pick the system color palette, enable Themed Icons, and more. The app is basically a one-stop shop for customizing the look and feel of your home screen and lock screen.

There are currently two ways to access the Pixel wallpaper app. First, you can press and hold on an empty spot on the home screen and then tap the Wallpaper & Style button that appears in the context menu. Second, you can go to Settings > Wallpaper & Style. Either method brings you to the Pixel wallpaper app, though the first option opens the app to the “home screen” tab while the second option opens the app to the “lock screen” tab.

With the new version of the Pixel wallpaper app that we enabled in Android 15 QPR1 Beta 1, the entry points are still the same, but the UI is significantly different. Here’s a video that compares the current UI of the Pixel wallpaper app to the in-development one we enabled. Note that the in-development UI is far from finished, so many features and assets are missing. Still, this early look gives us a good idea of what to expect from the new version of the app.

For starters, the tabs to switch between customizing the home screen and customizing the lock screen are now gone. Instead, to switch from customizing the home screen to customizing the lock screen (or vice versa), you now simply swipe from one to the other in the carousel underneath where it says “Wallpaper & style.”

The next big change is to how lock screen clock customization is handled. Instead of swiping left or right to cycle through the available lock screen clock styles, all the available options will be shown in a bottom sheet. The lock screen clock color and size customization settings are also contained within this new bottom sheet, albeit in separate tabs.

Likewise, the lock screen shortcut customization UI is now part of a bottom sheet instead of a separate page. With this change, you no longer need to scroll to see all available lock screen shortcuts, as up to 10 shortcuts can fit on the sheet (only nine shortcuts currently exist for phones).

The same is true for the new system color palette picker, which shows two rows of palette options instead of one. Selecting a color palette causes the home screen preview to zoom in, allowing you to better preview the changes to your icons. The option to toggle the dark theme also appears when the preview zooms in, so you can quickly preview how your home screen looks with the dark theme enabled, too.

The remaining options and toggles aren’t currently working in Android 15 QPR1 Beta 1, so we can’t show them off yet. We learned earlier today that the Android 15 update for Pixel phones won’t roll out next month, but it’s unlikely that Google will push out this new UI in the Android 15 stable release. Instead, it’s more likely we’ll see it in the December 2024 Pixel Drop at the earliest.

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