Change the appearance of your mobile to android 8 without updating

The beta versions of Android 8 do not stop coming out. There are more and more terminals with the possibility of updating to the one known as Android Oreo. Still, many devices are left behind as their companies decide not to update them. That is why we bring this guide, in order to bring the interface of this version of the green robot to all those who do not have an upgradeable model.

What you need to transform your mobile

To carry out this guide, we will need a couple of applications. Both applications are free with a pro version option.

Nova Launcher

The well-known downloadable Android launcher. And it is that not a few people use it regularly, or at least have tried it. Nova Launcher has long been the most used option when it comes to changing the interface of our phone, thanks in part to its great customization capacity. This application can be found both for free and in a paid version for 5.25 euros on Google Play. Both versions work for this guide.

Pixel NavBar

This application is designed for terminals that do not have physical buttons under the screen. Its function is simple: it changes the style of the navigation bar, adopting the appearance of Android 8. Although there are several apps that fulfill this same task, Pixel NavBar is our choice because it does not need to be a root user on our phone. This is because it works by applying an overlay layer to the original navigation bar of our mobile. The app is free with Pro version unlock to access more features and can be downloaded from here. As with Nova Launcher, the free version is sufficient for this guide.

How to transform your mobile into Android 8

Once we have both applications installed on our device, we can begin the visual transformation of our phone in Android 8. To do this, the first thing we will do is configure Nova Launcher as our default interface. This is done by opening the app called Nova Settings. Navigating through the menu we will find among the last selections the option to select the default launcher. Click here and choose the option to use Nova Launcher as a startup application. Do not forget to also click on the option always and not just once, otherwise we will have to repeat this process constantly.

When we have established Nova Launcher as our default interface we can change the appearance of our device. For this we will return to the beginning of the Nova Configuration. The parameters to be changed are distributed among the first 5 options.

Desk

In the Desktop section, we will see several options:

• Desktop grid: We will adjust the grid to 5 x 5. The sub-grid position is optional.
• Customize icons: The size will be the default. We activate the labels and adjust the configuration as in the following image:

• The width of the margin and the upper and lower margins are left at none.
• We activate the permanent search bar and access the style of the search bar. Here we choose the last style and leave the color of the bar blank. For the logo we will use the colored G and activate the superimposed search option. In this way, our search bar looks like the following image:

• In the scrolling options, we select the simple scrolling effect. The rest of the options in this section can be configured to your liking.
• Scroll indicator: We mark the second option and apply the color white.
• The rest of the options in this section are optional.

Applications

We return to the main configuration menu, and access the Applications section. Here we must configure the following:

• Application drawer grid: We mark 6 vertical and 5 horizontal boxes in portrait mode. For landscape mode they will be 5 vertical and 6 horizontal.
• Customize icons: The only change with respect to the desktop icons will be that the color of the labels will change from white to black.
• In the application drawer style we mark the vertical option, and then we deactivate the option of applications on cards.
• We activate the slide to open options and the slide indicator.
• We set the wallpaper to white with 0 percent transparency.
• We activate the fast scroll bar and adjust the color as in the following image:

• We leave the permanent search bar activated and deactivate the tab bar. Finally, we select the simple scrolling effect and deactivate the infinite scrolling.

Dock

After these adjustments, we return to the previous menu and select the dock section. The first option of all is to enable or disable the dock. This should be activated by default, but if not, we proceed to activate it. After this, we configure the rest of the options:

• In dock style, we select the rectangle shape and from the content we apply white color. We set the transparency to 75 percent and activate the option to draw behind the navigation bar. After these adjustments, the dock should look like this:

• We select a page and five icons from the dock. In customize icons, we deactivate the small icons and labels if they were activated.
• The searchbar in dock option must indicate none.
• The width of the margin and top and bottom margins leave them in small and deactivate infinite scroll.

Folders

For the folder section, the necessary configuration is quick and very simple:

• We select the folder preview in a grid, and as the folder background we choose the background of Pixel Launcher.
• As a transition animation we select enlarge, and the wallpaper is set to white with 15 percent transparency.
• In customizing icons, we copy the configuration we did before in the applications section, so that it looks like the following image:

Appearance

Finally we access the appearance section to give the final touches to the transformation of our phone.

• If our version of Android is 7.0, we select the theme for system icons. If we have an older version, we can select the Marshmallow option or search for a set of icons based on Android 8 on our own.
• We enable the adaptive icons option, and in adaptive icon style, we select the rounded (default) option as icon shape. Within adaptive icon style we also deactivate the option reshape legacy icons and activate the option adaptive icon animations. In this way, this configuration should look like this:

• We enable the option to normalize the size of the icons and the screen orientation, we leave it in its default option.
• Both the scrolling speed and the speed of the animation will be set to 'Nova' speed.
• The application animation must mark the system option, and the popup menu style must have the block option selected. The drop targets option is recommended to be activated, although it is totally optional.
• We activate the options to show the notification bar and the transparent notification bar, and we deactivate the option of dark icons.
• Finally, we set the background color of the search application to white.

The final touches

After all these steps, we will only have to go to the Pixel NavBar app and activate it. For this we must open this application and check the option Activate Pixel Navigation Bar.

The app also has a series of extra options to square the buttons separately, adjust their size, change their colors or adjust the shape or animations of the navigation bar.

Here we see how our phone looks after these steps, both in the menu and on the main screen. So we can enjoy the new interface of the green robot without having access to the Android 8 update.