Google ushered in the biggest change to its Android OS with the Android 12 update. It brought the so-called “Material You” UI to users, and with it some new, smart theming options. More and more apps are taking advantage of the Material You philosophy, and we’re here to list the best ones. Do note that there are not that many apps that made the change up to this point, but there are enough for us to make this list.
Do note that we’ll mostly list non-Google apps, though we’ve included two Google-made ones for good measure. Google actually adapted a lot of its apps for Material You, so this list could be all about Google apps. That’s not our goal, though, so we just picked two and moved to some third-party offerings. There are quite a few interesting apps here, and some you may not have heard of until now. Read on if you’re interested, and do note that they’re not listed in any specific order, other than the fact Google’s are at the bottom.
Top 10 Best Material You Android Apps 2021
Below is a quick overview of the top 10 best Material You Android apps for 2021, including any download and in-app purchase costs.
| Download Cost | In-app cost (per item) | |
| Infinity for Reddit | ✕ | ✕ |
| KWGT | ✕ | $5.99 |
| Tasker | $3.49 | ✕ |
| Swift Walls | ✕ | $0.99-$9.99 |
| Pix Material You Icons | $1.49 | $0.99-$9.99 |
| SeriesGuide | ✕ | $4.99-$24.99 |
| Inware | ✕ | ✕ |
| Niagara Launcher | ✕ | $0.99-$14.99 |
| Gmail | ✕ | ✕ |
| Google Keep | ✕ | ✕ |
Top 10 Best Material You Android Apps 2021 Downloads
Below is a little more information on each app, a suggestion for the type of user the app is best suited to, and a direct link for easy downloading.
All download links go to the app’s Google Play Store listing. Users are always recommended to download apps from Google Play or an authorized app store.
Infinity for Reddit
- Price: Free to download
- In-app purchases: No
- Size: 14MB
- Google Play rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars
Infinity for Reddit has been quite a popular third-party app for Reddit. It’s not the most popular one out there, but users have been praising it since it launched, basically. This app is immensely simple and it’s not heavy at all. It weighs only 14MB, so it’s ideal if you don’t need all the features under the sun, and just want the app to work properly. There are some features included here, though, don’t get me wrong.
This app offers multi-account support, it can auto scroll for you, and a night theme is also included. Material You is supported here, which is why we’ve listed it. If you’ve been looking for a Reddit app replacement, or you just want to try out what it’s like to use one, this is one of the best ones out there. The app is also highly rated in the Google Play Store, as it’s currently holding a 4.6-star rating.
KWGT
- Price: Free to download
- In-app purchases: $5.99
- Size: 25MB
- Google Play rating: 4.2 out of 5 stars
KWGT, as most of you know, is a custom widget maker. Considering that fact, it allows you to create some interesting widgets on your own. You can also utilize widgets from other makers, many of which are adapted for Android 12, like Android 12 KWGT, for example. That widget pack, for example, makes use of Material You changes, as it will adapt to the wallpaper you’re currently using.
Do note that KWGT is not your regular app, it may take some getting used to, to get you going. Once you do, you won’t be able to stop utilizing creations available in the Play Store, and making tweaks of your own. The possibilities with KWGT are endless, and we’ll keep seeing more and more widget packs that are adapted to Google’s Material You. It’s worth giving this app a shot.
Tasker
- Price: $3.49
- In-app purchases: No
- Size: 6.2MB
- Google Play rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars
Tasker is an automation app that has been around for a long, long time. The app has adapted to various different versions of Android, and is better than ever. You can create various automation scripts, triggers, and actions. Now, Tasker does have a rather interesting theme in the options, that essentially turns it into a Material You app. In addition to that, there is a function of the app that is Material You-related.
We’re talking about the ‘Get Material You Colors’ function. What does it do? Well, it extracts the colors and allows you to use them whatever you’re working on at the moment. Tasker is also one of those apps that you’ll need to get used to. It was a lot more complicated back in the day, though, now it has a really nice UI, and it’s a lot more intuitive. Still, you’ll need to get familiar with it.
Swift Walls
- Price: Free to download
- In-app purchases: $0.99-$9.99
- Size: 6.7MB
- Google Play rating: 4.2 out of 5 stars
The Swift Walls is also one of those apps that supports Material You’s dynamic colors. This is a wallpaper app, though, in case you were wondering. You can browse through a ton of wallpapers, choose the one you want, and set it for your home screen or lockscreen. There are a ton of wallpapers you can choose from, and various filters are available as well, so that you can trim down the ones you’re not interested in.
Now, this app not only support Material You’s dynamic colors, but its UI is also reminiscent of Android 12. It looks familiar to the Styles & Wallpapers menu in Android 12 on Google’s Pixel smartphones. This app is also not that large, it weighs only 6.2MB, and it has solid ratings in the Google Play Store. If you’re looking for a great wallpaper app that is adapted to Android 12, this one is worth trying.
Pix Material You Icons
- Price: $1.49
- In-app purchases: $0.99-$9.99
- Size: 22.93MB
- Google Play rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars
Pix You Material Icons is an app that contains both icons and widgets. Now, the thing is, these icons are compatible with Material You. Based on the change to your wallpaper, these icons will change as well. One thing to note, though, is that you’ll need to reset the icons when you change the wallpaper, manually, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem, as chances are you don’t change your wallpaper that often.
That’s not all, though. If you need some widgets that will pull colors through the Material You setup, this app has you covered. Granted, those widgets do look quite simple, but there’s nothing wrong with that, as they look very clean and fit great with Material You. One thing to note regarding this app is that you’ll need a third-party launcher in order to utilize it. Why? Well, the Pixel Launcher does not support icon packs, unfortunately.
Download Pix Material You Icons
SeriesGuide
- Price: Free to download
- In-app purchases: $4.99-$24.99
- Size: Varies with device
- Google Play rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
SeriesGuide is a great app if you’re watching a lot of movies and TV shows. It will help keep track of what you watched, which can be extremely useful for TV shows. You can mark off one episode at a time. The app also recommends new stuff to watch, so that you’re never out of ideas. You can find more information about movies and TV shows here as well, including the plot and so on.
This app does support Material You, and has various other features. The app is also open source, so you won’t see any ads here, or anything of the sort. It does have an optical subscription model, though, which some of you may be interested in. That model boosts the app’s notifications, ads more widgets, and much more than that. This is one of the best movie and TV show management apps out there.
Inware
- Price: Free to download
- In-app purchases: No
- Size: 3.6MB
- Google Play rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
Inware is an app that not everyone will be interested in, as not everyone cares about the info this app delivers. If you are interested in various information about the phone that you’re using, you may check it out, though. It’s really great at what it does, it shows you tons of information about your phone. You can check out the hardware details of its camera setup, for example, or see what RAM exactly is being used on the inside.
Those are just some examples, of course, a lot of information is included here. You can take a look at a basic spec list as well. Basically anything that may interest you about your phone, hardware-wise, this app can give you the answers. It does support Material You theming now, and it looks great because of it. This app offered a really simple design from the get-go, and users did appreciate that.
Niagara Launcher
- Price: Free to download
- In-app purchases: $0.99-$14.99
- Size: 6.2MB
- Google Play rating: 4.6 out of 5 stars
Niagara Launcher is one of the most popular third-party launchers for Android. This app has been evolving at a considerable pace ever since it was announced. Since then, it received a ton of features, and it’s really great today because of it. Well, the latest update does bring Material You support to the app, and you don’t even need to have an Android 12 device in order to take advantage of it.
Do note that this change arrived via a beta update, though. Niagara Launcher does not have a beta channel in the Play Store, but you can sideload an APK if you’re interested. We’ll leave a link to Niagara Launcher’s official website where you can see the links for download. If you’re unwilling to do that, though, a stable update should become available in about two weeks from the Play Store.
Download Niagara Launcher Beta
Gmail
- Price: Free to download
- In-app purchases: No
- Size: Varies with device
- Google Play rating: 4.1 out of 5 stars
Gmail is one of the two Google apps that we’ve decided to include on this list. Many Google apps got the update, so it was difficult to choose. Gmail is one of Google’s best apps, and it’s one of the apps that many of you use on a daily basis. Needless to say you can attach various different email accounts to this app, and easily switch between them by swiping down over your profile picture.
The app has excellent spam blocking features, as Google claims that it can block 99.9-percent of spam, malware, and dangerous links. You can utilize Google Chat directly from the app, and there are a number of additional options available here, from fine-tuning notifications, to various gestures, and so on. The app does look simple, and yet it’s a real powerhouse in the email app department.
Google Keep
- Price: Free to download
- In-app purchases: No
- Size: Varies with device
- Google Play rating: 4.2 out of 5 stars
Google Keep is Google’s very own note-taking application, and yet another app that supports Material You theming. This application isn’t exactly amongst the most popular ones from Google, but it’s very popular in the general scheme of things. It’s easily one of the most popular note-taking apps, that’s for sure. You can create lists of notes here, and that includes bulletpoints as well.
The app supports two different modes of checking your notes, and you can even color-code them if you want. If drawing is your thing, that’s something else you can do here, while voice notes are also supported. Yes, you can attach images to your notes as well, if that’s something you’d like to do. The app is entirely free, of course, and it does not include ads or anything of the sort.
2021-12-09 15:05:55