Free themes may become second-class citizens in Samsung's Theme Store with Android Pie, but the paid themes the company wants to thrust on users may make up for it by theming more elements of the interface than is possible on Android Oreo and previous versions of the OS. One of the popular theme designers, Lucas Kendi, has revealed that One UI allows themes to change the look of the notification cards.
The notification cards that show up in the notification shade and on the lock screen are perhaps the only major element that Samsung doesn't allow third-party themes to change at the moment. And if you regularly change themes on your Galaxy smartphone, you will know how jarring it can be to see those white notification cards. With One UI, these cards will look just like the rest of the UI for a more uniform look no matter which theme you choose. And it's likely that this change has come about as a result of the new Night mode, which itself is a theme that you can use to switch from the regular white UI to a dark one that's easy on the eyes and also saves battery life.
And the next Android Pie beta may officially allow users to switch themes and icons instead of needing a workaround, as Samsung is now letting theme designers update their themes for compatibility with One UI/Android Pie. It could also mean we're not too far away from the stable release of Android Pie. Samsung has said the official release will be in January, although it remains to be seen if the Pie update will come out in early or mid-January instead of in the last few days like previous OS upgrades.
