Commute UI is a dark theme with five different color accents all rolled into one theme and you can get it for either CM12’s Theme Engine or RRO Layers.
I forget exactly where I saw the Commute UI theme first but it definitely drew my attention when I saw it pass through my social media stream. The idea of Commute UI is very simple, give the users a dark and elegant theme with the ability to pick a different accent to go with it. So whether you just really like one particular color that comes bundled with it, or maybe you like to mix things up a little bit without it becoming too jarring for you.
If you are the latter, then Commute UI is excellent as it is basically five different themes all rolled into one bundle.
Companion App
When you first install the application you are give a companion application to go along with your theme. Opening up the companion application reveals a very minimal looking app with five different options. The app leaves something to be desired but it gets the job done without looking horrible, so the developer gets a few points here. If we look at the top right, we see an overflow menu icon with ways that we can rate the app, share the app, visit the Google+ community for the app, visit the developer’s Google+ account and a way for you to email the developer in case you have a question or maybe you come across an issue.
Tapping on one of these colors reveals a lollipop for that color and then a FAB at the bottom right. Tapping on that plus sign FAB will ask you if you want to install this color. If you tap on yes then you will see a traditional app install screen where you can initiate the install. Once you install the color(or colors) of your choosing then they will show up in your theme chooser. I’m not 100% sure about how RRO layers work but I think there’s an application similar to CM12’s Theme Engine that lets you control which theme you have activated. As you can see in the install page, this theme comes with a Style, a Status Bar, a Navigation Bar, Wallpapers, and Lock Wallpapers.
Dark Theme
As I mentioned, Commute UI is a dark theme so you can expect to see a lot of dark panels everywhere. This is what the various pages of the Google Play Store looks like with theme applied. As you can see, there’s not very much white at all and this should do very well with devices that have an AMOLED display. Since AMOLED displays use less battery life when displaying dark colors, this will help to improve the battery life on devices like the Galaxy S6, Galaxy Note 4 and the Nexus 6. The colors at the top of each category do not change depending on which color theme you have. This is how Google styles the Google Play Store and it is to help you know which category you are in just by looking at the action bar(eg. green is games, blue is books, etcetera).
Continuing with the dark theme, areas that are typically white, like the background of the application drawer is going to be dark after you apply this theme. Whether or not this looks good to you will depend entirely on if you like dark themes. I think it will be fairly easy for you to decide if this theme is for you or not since it all boils down to personal preference. However, getting a nice icon pack that compliments the dark theme(and possibly the accent color you choose) could help as well so keep that in mind. The same wallpaper you see in your home screen will be the same one that appears in the lock screen as well. So unless you have ways of changing it, then you’ll be seeing that wallpaper a lot.
Blue Accent
Here we have some sample screenshots of what the Blue accent color of Commute UI looks like. The first screen we see what one page of my home screen looks like with the blue accent wallpaper. Next we have the quick settings panel which shows the blue accent color in the screenshot notification as well as the brightness slider. Third we have the main settings page and then right after that I show a secondary settings page.
Gold Accent
I’m showing the same four screenshots but with each different accent so you get an idea as to how things are different between each of the colors. So we have the home screen, then the quick settings panel, followed by a settings page and then another settings page. Here you can see which spots change color with each different accent and they are all the same. No surprises here so I’m just going to show you how each of them look.
Green Accent
Grey Accent
Pink Accent
Conclusion
It’s no doubt that Commute UI is a very basic user interface theme, but sometimes that is all that a user wants. Not everyone needs glass effects for panels or animations going everywhere. Sometimes a person just wants something basic, something that looks good and that matches the current icon pack that they are using. Commute UI does that and does it very well I think. I touched on something in the Marvak icon pack review that I did a couple of days ago. I thought it was interesting that Samer gave some seemed like a random set of colors for icons. Thankfully he had multiple colors of different icons so you could go in and pick which one you liked the most if you had a launcher with that feature.
So many times I go through the Google Play Store and see very nice looking themes or icon packs and think ‘man, this would be perfect for me if it were a different accent color’. This can’t be too difficult for a themer to do(at least most of the time). Simple substitute one color for another, export it, then substitute that accent color for another. Rinse and repeat. As a consumer, this seems easy(even though I’m aware of how much work it takes to make these themes and icon packs), but I do admit that sometimes a themer has a vision for a project and that’s why they chose to release it that way. I respect that but I feel that it can result in lost sales due to other people thinking like me.
Then again, I’m sure there are plenty of others who don’t think like me and are happy to buy a theme no matter what accent color it is. Either way, Stefano(the artist behind Commute UI) seems to understand this logic and has given you a way to pick the accent color you like the most and I applaud him for that. Not only that, but he bundled five different colors all into one theme instead of splitting it up and charging for each individual color. I love that he went this route and I hope to see other artists do the same in the future.
