No longer a secret: light-colored status bars in Android M will come with dark-colored icons

posted by Peter K. / Jun 02, 2015, 6:07 AM

No longer a secret: light-colored status bars in Android M will come with dark-colored icons

The probable features that the final release of Android M will likely sport are gradually coming to surface. You probably recall the lusted-after multi-window feature that got quickly discovered a while ago, right?

As you probably know, Lollipop came with dynamic status bar background colors, which can be changed by the app you're currently running; still, the color of the status bar icons (clock, battery, and other default ones) is fixed and they only appear in white. Yet, this might make them a bit unreadable provided that the background is lighter.

Today, we have a new small feature that will likely arrive with Android M later this year. Revealed by Roman Nurik, a design advocate over at Google, the M release will come with status bar icons that will dynamically change their color theme depending on the brightness of the status bar background.

A new flag ("windowLightStatusBar") discovered in the M Developer Preview will enable developers to instruct the Android system to switch the default white status bar theme to a darker one.

Hopefully, developers will embrace this newly-found feature and update their apps with this neat functionality once Android M becomes official later this year.

source: Roman Nurik via Reddit

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8 Comments

1. Wiencon

Posts: 2278; Member since: Aug 06, 2014

With such killer features Android is undisputed king among mobile OS.

posted on Jun 02, 2015, 6:16 AM 1

2. AlikMalix unregistered

I rely on those status bars to know what's happening in background on my iPhone since iOS7 - wonder if they match colors on android: blue for navigation, green for calls, red for recording, etc. in surprised it didn't Chang automatically with light/white backgrounds as it does on iOS.

posted on Jun 02, 2015, 6:28 AM 1

3. peace247 unregistered

Don't be jealous..

posted on Jun 02, 2015, 6:32 AM 3

5. AlikMalix unregistered

Jealous of what? I dont understand your reply.

posted on Jun 02, 2015, 6:42 AM 2

6. fatexo

Posts: 221; Member since: May 21, 2010

You call this a killer feature ? iOS has this since iOS7.. Even the lockscreen and homescreen texts change colors to white or black depending on the wallpaper you set.