Call it freedom or a necessary evil – but the OEM specific skins are one of the major attractions of the Android ecosystem. Companies like Motorola prefer to include subtle changes on stock Android, while Asian vendors mostly opt for a complete redesign.
Although I am a hardcore fan of vanilla Android, I can’t ignore the contributions originated from these third party skins. For example, scrolling screenshot is still not natively supported by Android. This particular feature is supported by vendor skins since years.
It is a not a secret anymore that Realme is cooking a new flavor of Android in their lab. Popularly termed as Realme OS, the distribution is probably being built on top of OPPO’s ColorOS but don’t take my word for it yet. What we do know that system-wide dark mode will be a part of the new skin.
Realme Community Handler Alessio has come up with yet another survey today. We can spot a handful of interesting elements there: first, they second the speculations about massive UI changes as the heading of this week’s survey is ‘ColorOS – Revamped Look’.
In case of notification toggles, they are even referencing the per element color changing facility of OxygenOS of OnePlus. Guess these cousins (Realme and OnePlus) are collaborating for real.
Next UI element is icons, and looks like Realme is emphasizing on adaptive icons right from the beginning. The stock launcher of current iteration of ColorOS does not support icon reshaping out of the box. The situation should be changed soon.
OnePlus recently updated a bunch of their stock apps. They shifted the menu bar to the bottom; similar to Google Chrome Duet (previously Duplex) design. Realme visual design team is considering this approach as well, or at least the final question in the survey indicates so.
Are you excited about the upcoming visual overhaul of ColorOS (or should I say Realme OS?) on Realme phones? Don’t forget to take a look at the discussion thread and cast your vote by clicking here.
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