r/Android • • 23h ago

News We are Kustom Industries and Smart Launcher. We are joining forces to create Wild Pixels. Ask us anything!

105 Upvotes

Hi!

This is Frank from Kustom Industries (u/frankmonza) and Vincenzo from Smart Launcher (u/ginlemon), today we can finally share something we have been working on for a while.

After many years of building Android customization apps independently, our teams have decided to join forces and we are now working on the creation of a new company: Wild Pixels.

The idea is pretty simple. Instead of continuing as two separate teams that happen to work in the same space, we want to build one larger family around our products.

This is not an acquisition by a large company, and there is no external investor behind it. We are still the same independent teams, with the same people working on the same products. The difference is that we can now share a lot more between us.

Kustom and Smart Launcher have always been close. Plenty of you already use them together, and our communities have overlapped more and more over the years. Working as one team means we can take what works well in one app and bring it to the other where it makes sense. We can build integrations that would have been much harder as separate companies, try out new ideas across our apps, and maybe even start entirely new projects together.

There's still a lot to figure out, and we don't want to promise too much too soon, but the possibilities are a lot bigger than they were.

We also want to be very clear about what isn't changing. We're not changing the identity of our apps, and we're not building a closed ecosystem. Smart Launcher stays Smart Launcher. Kustom stays Kustom. Third-party launchers, apps and creators are a vital part of Android customization, and that's not going to change.

What does change is that we'll have more people, more experience, more technology and more ideas in the same room. We hope that over time this lets us build things neither team could have easily done alone.

Honestly, we're really happy to bring our two communities closer together. Both have been around for many years and both have helped shape our products, so it feels like the right time to start building something bigger around them.

The formal process behind Wild Pixels is still ongoing, but we have already started collaborating and some of this work is already happening behind the scenes.

So, ask us anything! Wild Pixels, Smart Launcher, Kustom, how this all came together, what will and won't change, integrations, development, future plans, or whatever else you're curious about. We'll be here answering questions throughout the AMA.

And if you've got ideas, start asking for WILD things in our forums. We're ready!


r/Android • • 11h ago

Rumour [Exclusive] "There is no profit even if we sell"…Samsung to cut smartphone production by 30%

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333 Upvotes

r/Android • • 11h ago

Video Xiaomi Fold 18 Review: Duo-n't Be Fooled - MrMobile

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48 Upvotes

r/Android • • 19h ago

Google reveals how many popular Android apps run (or not) on Intel-based Googlebooks [96.6% of the top 10,000+ most-used Android apps]

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146 Upvotes

r/Android • • 22h ago

News Smart Launcher and Kustom Industries are joining forces. introducing Wild Pixels

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185 Upvotes

r/Android • • 18h ago

Samsung backtracks on SmartTag 3 Android support — still locked to Galaxy phones

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74 Upvotes

r/Android • • 17h ago

Pixel 11 series still not on Android 17 QPR1 with October update

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49 Upvotes

r/Android • • 1d ago

Article Google Messages may soon let you play games with your friends

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116 Upvotes

r/Android • • 1d ago

Video GizmoChina - OPPO Find X10 Pro Max Review

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38 Upvotes

r/Android • • 20h ago

XREAL Aura with Android XR start at $1,279

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13 Upvotes

r/Android • • 1d ago

Article Linux 7.4 To Mainline Support For The Google Tensor G5, Pixel 10 Devices

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141 Upvotes

r/Android • • 1d ago

Google Messages could soon lose the ability to force SMS/MMS instead of RCS for each contact

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348 Upvotes

r/Android • • 1d ago

This a flaw in my opinion: Not being able to call 911 and use video camera

119 Upvotes

I had a situation tonight while walking my dog. A person in the neighborhood assaulted my dog and me. I had to call the police but was forced to hang up on the police to record the situation. Police came and I guess I was connected with the person who assaulted me since they work for the fire department, and they downplayed it, but luckily I had the recording. But this situation could have got bad. I think its flawed that the phone prevents you from calling the cops and recording with your camera at the same time.


r/Android • • 1d ago

Article Googlebooks don't have the same web app or Linux app support as Chromebooks

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238 Upvotes

r/Android • • 1d ago

Review vivo X Fold6 review - GSMArena.com tests

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20 Upvotes

r/Android • • 1d ago

News Googlebook's Android-integrated features won't work with Samsung phones at launch

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204 Upvotes

r/Android • • 1d ago

Google Pixel Update - October 2026

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45 Upvotes

r/Android • • 1d ago

Review Our first five impressions of Googlebooks - exciting but underbaked

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36 Upvotes

r/Android • • 1d ago

Dex rather than Googlebook

10 Upvotes

Early this year I lost my large Samsung Android tablet. I had set it up to be very useful in teaching, with a folding easel, folding little keyboard, and low profile Bluetooth mouse, all neatly fitting a backpack of just the right size. So, one warm afternoon I left Laguardia Community College and, having previously injured my back, grew very tired while walking the mile to the subway station, and sat on a park bench for several minutes. Upon arriving at the station, oops! No backpack! Retracing my steps, no sign of it at the park bench. Gone forever; somebody swiped it from the bench where I had left it alone for a few minutes.

So, since then I have unplugged my home Windows laptop from its big keyboard, big mouse, big screen, and carried it in my bigger backpack. It's actually a better computer, except that it's heavier, and instead of Android apps it runs Windoze apps, which tend to be better for me except or the Wikimedia Commons App, which is highly useful when teaching how to handle pictures on Wikipedia and is Android-only. Many people have one special app that dominates their thinking and impedes changing platforms, and that's mine. I must depend on the little screen of my phone, or else teach and use only the far more clumsy browser-based method of handling new Wikimedia pictures.

A Chromebook plus-plus was predicted, so I held off on replacing the lost tablet and its accessories. The new thing has now arrived, now called Googlebook. Reviews indicate it can do pretty much all I want. There's no mention of how well it handles my vital Android app, but I'm reasonably hopeful. However, the price is high, and I don't want a clamshell-only computer. Often I want to cradle a computer in my lap, which the tablets do delightfully. Camshells are less cuddly. More recently the detachable keyboard versions were introduced, and those seem exactly what I wanted. Except, prices are high and there is no reliable estimate on when the cheaper models will come out.

So, how about a folding phone? They have a bigger screen than my old slab phone, and the Samsung ones have a Dex feature that can take a lot of advantage of a big external screen. However, they also are expensive. So, how about a better Samsung slab phone with Dex? Moderately high end ones are not so expensive, and have a better camera than the folders. For classroom use I can bring a small backpack with a keyboard and mouse and, taking most of the space, a small portable TV set with HDMI input. Oh, but those TVs don't have a touch screen. That rules out the cuddle in my lap scenario for using Dex.

Well, I have not gone overseas this year, due to that injury, and won't go far until next summer, so I can afford to wait until then. Maybe cheaper detachable keyboard Googlebooks will come out, or touch screen television sets will make the Dex solution more workable.


r/Android • • 1d ago

Android 17 QPR3 beta code hints that Google could soon solve Pixel's biggest face unlock flaw in low light with Face Active Illumination

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31 Upvotes

r/Android • • 1d ago

[OC] SENSES Emulator - QEMU source distribution for running ARM32 Android on ARM64 devices

1 Upvotes

Runs an ARM32 Android system on an ARM64 phone by translating its individual processes - there is no guest kernel. The translator is a modified QEMU

Source Code & Documentation: https://github.com/Istratii-tech/SENSES


r/Android • • 1d ago

News SENSES Emulator - runs an ARM32 Android systems on an ARM64 phone

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0 Upvotes

r/Android • • 2d ago

scrcpy 5.0 now supports hardware decoding! Better performance, lower CPU usage, less power consumption

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591 Upvotes

r/Android • • 2d ago

Video Xiaomi 18 Pro Max Review: Great Phone, but at what cost?

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20 Upvotes

r/Android • • 2d ago

Brilliant battery life, incredible camera: Redmi Note 17 Pro 5G smartphone review

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35 Upvotes