When Google's new Material You UI design was introduced, a lot of people were hoping that it would also be on other smartphones beside Pixel phones. Unfortunately, most, if not, all companies do implement Android 12 but painted all over the Material You design with their own software skins.
Luckily, Facundo Holzmeister, from the HowToMen YouTube channel, made a tutorial video on how to give your device the Material You it deserves:
Channel Link: https://youtube.com/c/howtomen
Video Link: https://youtu.be/a0Zvt__LvDw
If you follow the tutorial, it will link you to APKMirror. Don't worry, the site is safe and you can ignore Chrome's warnings. In addition, I've watched a lot of the channels videos so their tutorials are effective.
I've tried it out myself but I used a different pair of widgets and a different app for the wallpaper. Here's a sample:
My favorite feature is it follows the system's theme whether it's in light mode or dark mode.
The widget app and wallpaper app I used are:
- Clock: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=twelve.clock.mibrahim
- Weather: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=twelve.weather.mibrahim
- Wallpaper: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=xyz.zedler.patrick.doodle
These are free, follows the theme, and the wallpaper app allows parallax and zoom effects. The widgets still work if you use a different launcher which is great!
NOTE:
- It uses a 3rd party launcher, meaning full-screen navigation gestures may not work smoothly.
- The launcher is still in development, features may not work perfectly and sometimes even missing. But the essentials of a 3rd party launcher is present.
- Expect some bugs and crashes with the launcher, widgets, or wallpaper. But it won't be overwhelming or frequent.
- The wallpaper may get janky if you use too many effects like parallax, zoom, and tilt effects all at the same time.
- The setup is a bit taxing, especially if you have a slow or low-end device.
Samsung did say OneUI 4 will allow you to make your Galaxy device yours. Why not take a step further and implement Material You entirely to your homescreen. If you don't like to use a 3rd party launcher, try out the widget and wallpaper apps I mentioned with Samsung's OneUI Home or your preferred launcher. They still work regardless.
If you have reach this far, I thank you for reading this post. Android's biggest difference against other OS is its customizablility and let's make use of it as much as we can.
