In 2021, Google introduced its new color engine called Material You, in conjunction with the release of Android 12.In 2023, Google is working to bring the wallpaper-based design language to Chrome for desktop and ChromeOS, so it’s available on more devices. In the latest Dev version of Google’s mobile operating system, 114, you can choose your own favorite colors from the wallpaper — as long as you enable a flag or participate in A/B testing.
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If you're using the latest ChromeOS Dev build 114, you can now enable the #jelly-colors and #personalization-jelly to set four different color schemes, including the option to disable wallpaper color matching entirely. Android 12 only offers four different accent colors, compared to Android 13 which offers 16 different color generation methods. Unlike Android, you don't have the option to choose a default color that isn't taken from wallpaper . This may be frustrating for some users who want their wallpaper to look different from their interface.
Custom colors were enabled with Chrome Unboxed in January. Now they're more widely available, and you don't need to use a workaround to enable them.
See also: ChromeOS 104 released with user interface updates
To take advantage of the new theming features, you can use the #chrome-refresh-2023 in desktop Chrome. This feature triggers the upcoming redesign of the program and offers a few new places where you can display the new colors.
Before the Material You theme flag went live, you were able to preview it. When the Jelly Colors flag is enabled on ChromeOS, your interface will adopt Material You colors derived from your chosen wallpaper, creating a color-dominated interface. With the new tweak, you can now choose your preferred color engine to have more control over how your Material You-themed Chromebook looks
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With the new Material You color picker in ChromeOS 114, it looks like Google is gearing up to announce a major redesign of the operating system at the upcoming Google I/O conference this month. Finally, the last piece left to complete the 2023 OS redesign is the color picker. Two years after Material You first appeared on Android, it’s expected to roll out to more services soon, and we won’t have to wait long.
