Android 11 DP4 Adds New Icon Shapes to the Launcher

Google last night rolled out a fourth, unscheduled, developer preview for Android 11, and as one would expect at this point, there aren’t a lot of big changes all over the place. That said, there still are things that Google is tweaking and testing, and one such thing is the Android 11 launcher.

In the Android 11 DP4, Google is testing a couple of new customisation options in the default Android 11 launcher. There are two new icon shapes that can be selected when creating a custom style for the launcher including a rather bad-looking hexagon, and a quatrefoil. You can see the new icon shapes in the screenshot below.

Interestingly enough, you can choose from the two new icon shapes when creating your own custom style in the launcher app, but they don’t actually show up on screen if you apply the custom style you created. That’s something we expect to see fixed in the next few iterations of these beta software.

Apart from this, 9to5Google also spotted a change in the shape of the chevron that identifies the app drawer. It’s apparently wider now, but with the same height as before. I didn’t really notice it myself, but it looks fine to me.

What are your thoughts on the new icon shapes that are showing up in the fourth developer preview of Android 11 though? Let us know.