We often, and quite rightly, complain about the way device makers customize the "stock" build of Android to suit their own needs. Customizing software is not inherently bad, but Samsung, LG, and others are usually doing it to push their apps and services. These companies frequently make unnecessary aesthetic changes for the sake of being different.

You don't have to put up with the look and feel of Android on your phone, though. You can customize things to better suit your own style and usage patterns—all it takes is a little legwork. The more time you want to spend on it, the more extensive the customization can be. It all starts with the right tools.

Wallpapers

This is a very basic step, but it's an important one. You want the wallpaper on your phone to match the style you're going for with the rest of your customizations. In fact, you can take inspiration from wallpapers to inform the decisions you make regarding icons and widgets. OEMs usually only include a handful of device wallpapers that are, to be frank, lacking. Some of the wallpaper apps on Android aren't much better, and they often have spammy ads all over.

Finding other options is easy. Backdrops is free to download, and you have full access to almost the entire catalog. The developers are frequently adding new original content to the app, and there are a good number of user-uploaded wallpapers as well. If you want to download wallpapers to save them offline, you'll need to upgrade to the full version for $1.99. That includes access to a few premium wallpaper sets as well.





The other app to check out is Google's own Wallpapers app. This gives you access to many of the same backgrounds that ship on the Pixel (like all those great satellite photos). It doesn't have as much content built-in as Backdrops, but it's all very high-quality. These wallpapers work on the home screen of all devices, but don't forget most phones let you set the lock screen wallpaper, too.

What about live wallpapers? Those are still a thing, but you need to be cautious of the potential battery impact. Some are well-optimized, though, and you might be fine with the small additional drain. The wallpapers from Maxelus have always been great looking and surprisingly easy on the battery. Developer Joko Interactive also has some geometric live wallpapers that would look great with the right icons.

Home screens

The part of your phone or tablet that you interact with most is the home screen. Almost any action starts on the home screen, but very few Android devices come with a completely unmodified version of the launcher from the Android Open Source Project. Even Google's devices come with the Pixel Launcher or Google Now Launcher. Other OEMs have their own heavily modified launchers, so for maximum customization, you'll need to grab a more powerful home screen app.

The most popular third-party home screen is Nova Launcher. There's a free version to try out, but it'll cost you $4.99 to unlock the Prime version with all the features. This is definitely not a purchase you'll regret if customization is the goal.

With Nova, you can control the number of home screens, position of the main screen panel, and also the size of the icon grid. This will all be very important as you get deeper into customizing the interface. You can have multiple screens with densely packed icons and widgets or stick to a single screen with themed folders.









Nova isn't the only game in town, of course. The other top launcher you will not regret picking up is Action Launcher 3. Again, this app has a trial version with a full unlock for $4.99. While Nova is a bit of a chameleon that becomes whatever you want it to be, Action Launcher 3 has slightly fewer features with a more distinctive style.

Action Launcher includes basic things like gestures and grid size adjustments, but it also has a slide-out app drawer and widget panel, pop-up widgets (known as Shutters), automated UI theming, and more. It even has a few features of the Pixel Launcher like the swipe-up app drawer and revamped Google Widget.

No matter which home screen you pick, there are some general features you ought to be aware of when customizing. If you're going for a sleek minimalist look, you'll definitely want to remove the text labels from your app icons. Gestures are available in both launchers, offering a way to remove many of the unnecessary visual clutter. For example, you can use a multitouch swipe to pull up the app list or search your installed apps. At that point, you don't even need to have an app drawer button on the screen.

One of the most important features supported by third-party home screens is backup and restore. Both Action Launcher and Nova have that, and you'll make frequent use of it as you play around with customizing your phone. Make frequent backups so you can restore the backup if you screw something up. It's much faster than rebuilding a carefully crafted layout.

There are, of course, other home screen replacements in the Play Store, but these are the top ones. They have excellent update support and a ton of customization features. One of the most popular features supported by third-party home screens is icon packs. That's something you'll want to look into.

Icon packs

There are untold heaps of icon packs in the Play Store, but most of them are not very good. They might look alright at first, but either the selection of icons they offer is very shallow or many of the designs are simply low-effort. You'll have to hunt around for the best ones.

Icon packs can be applied in your custom launcher settings, replacing the stock icons on your device. Some OEMs choose extraordinarily unattractive icons, so almost any icon pack is an improvement. Icon packs are about getting a consistent look to go with your custom home screen's aesthetic. The designers usually have a certain look for each pack like dark material, circular icons, vintage, and even Apple-esque squircles.







In general, you want to find an icon pack that has a lot of icons—it's usually one of the top bullet points in the description. You probably don't have 5,000 apps on your phone to go with all those icons, but that means a higher chance the icon pack has icons for all the apps you do have installed. If you are missing icons for apps you use often, you may ruin the vibe with a non-matching icon. Many packs include generic icons that can be manually applied if something you use isn't supported, but that's a pain to do and has to be redone every time you switch to a different icon pack.

Most icon packs cost a few dollars—at least the good ones do. Don't be afraid to give some of them a shot. You can always return the app if the icons don't look as good on your phone as they do in the screenshots. You should also keep in mind that many icon packs come with a selection of wallpapers that match the style of the icons. So, you might not even need to go hunting for a matching image in one of the above apps.

Some of the best icon packs to get you started are Cryten (pastel circles), Materialistik (a highly stylized take on material design), Rifon (clean, bold squares), and Lines (white wire frame icons). The icon pack rabbit hole is extraordinarily deep and can get expensive.