There’s a lot of beauty in Google’s shiny new Pixel, and that extends to the Pixel Launcher.
The clean lines of the redesigned Google widget atop the screen, the whimsical portholes for folder icons, the faint white bar behind the dock … Google did a lot of interesting things with its new launcher layout, and while I’m all for the Pixel look, let’s face it: not all of us have 800 bucks for a Pixel. And even those with a Pixel can get fed up with the launcher’s limitations when it comes to desktop grid size and icon packs. Don’t worry! You don’t have to give up your sweet Pixely theme just because you’re giving up the Pixel Launcher.
Luckily for us, two of the most popular replacement launchers on the market have already done most of the work for us; all we have to do is turn the proper settings on. We’ll show you how to bring out the Pixel in Nova Launcher and Action Launcher, and how to put it all together.
Google Wallpapers
I’ve said before in themes like these that stock wallpapers are boring as hell, make me sad and shouldn’t be used. Thankfully, I don’t have to say that this time because the Wallpapers app that ships on the Pixel and is available on Google Play has dozens and dozens of beautiful and diverse wallpapers ranging from Google Earth and Landscapes to Life and Textures. They even have daily wallpaper settings so that your wallpaper can’t get stale and sad, because you can wake up every morning to a new one! Yay!
See our review of Google Wallpapers
Icons
The Pixel uses round icons. Woo. Hoo. There are a lot (by which I mean a metric crapton) of round icon packs out there, but we’ve come to the two we prefer over all others, and indeed over the mismatched stock icons on the Pixel.
Pixel UI Icon Pack, left, and Dives – Icon Pack, right
Pixel Icon Pack (Free) is a free icon pack with the Pixel icons we’ve come to love (or not), along with a decent amount of themed third-party icons and a masking tool for icons that don’t have an icon in the pack yet. There aren’t a lot of alternate icons, but it looks decent in the app drawer and on the home screen, is easy to apply and easy to navigate if you’re looking for a specific icon or alternate.
Dives – Icon Pack ($0.99) is by Vertumus, a developers with some very robust and beautiful packs, and while you can find the standard Pixel icons here for stock apps along with round icons for thousands of apps, what we also have here are alternate icons for apps like
Pixel Plus: How to make your phone look like a Pixel (and better)
