Simply You Icon Pack

For over a decade, the primary battleground between Android and iOS was “customization.” Android users prided themselves on the ability to change every pixel of their interface, from launchers to widgets and, most importantly, icon packs. However, for a long time, this customization was chaotic. Users would mix and match disparate styles, resulting in homescreens that were functional but often visually disjointed.

Then came Material You.

With the introduction of Android 12, Google unveiled a design language that wasn’t just about static looks—it was about feeling. Material You (or “Monet”) introduced dynamic theming, where the system extracts colors from your wallpaper and applies them across the OS. It was a revolution in digital aesthetics.

Enter Simply You Icon Pack by PizzApp Design.

While Google’s stock Pixel launcher does a decent job of theming system icons, it often leaves third-party apps looking like sore thumbs, breaking the immersion. Simply You bridges this gap. It is not just another icon pack; it is a comprehensive overhaul for your device that embraces the “shapeless” fluid design of Material You, bringing a cohesive, adaptive, and stunningly beautiful look to every app on your phone.

In this deep-dive review, we will explore why Simply You has become the gold standard for Android personalization, dissecting its features, design philosophy, and why it is worth every cent of its modest price tag.

The Design Philosophy: Defining “Material You”

To understand the brilliance of Simply You, one must first understand the design language it emulates. “Material You” is built on the concept of personalization and adaptability. It moves away from rigid shapes (like the “squircle” or circle) and harsh contrasts, favoring pastel tones, high legibility, and organic adaptability.

The “Shapeless” Aesthetic

Most icon packs force apps into a specific container—usually a circle or a rounded square. While this creates uniformity, it often feels forced and can crop logos in awkward ways.

Simply You takes a bolder approach: Shapeless Icons. The developer, PizzApp Design, has meticulously crafted icons that respect the silhouette of the original logo while stripping away the background container. This results in an interface that feels open, airy, and modern. When placed on a homescreen, these icons don’t look like stickers pasted onto glass; they look like floating glyphs that are part of the wallpaper itself.

Dynamic Color Engine Adaptation

The “Magic Trick” of this icon pack is its ability to interface with the Android system’s color extraction engine.

• The Mechanism: When you change your wallpaper to a sunset image (oranges, purples, deep blues), Simply You doesn’t stay static. It reads the system accent colors generated by Android and instantly recolors all 25,000+ icons to match that palette.
• The Result: Your phone feels like a single, cohesive organism. A green forest wallpaper turns your Instagram, WhatsApp, and Reddit icons into varying shades of sage, emerald, and mint. A cyberpunk neon wallpaper shifts them to hot pinks and electric blues.

This dynamic capability is what separates Simply You from the thousands of static icon packs on the Play Store. It is “alive” in a way that static PNG-based packs simply cannot be.

Feature Deep Dive: By The Numbers

It is easy to make a beautiful icon pack for the top 50 most popular apps. The real test of an icon pack is its depth. Nothing is more frustrating than having a perfectly themed homescreen ruined by one obscure calculator app or a local banking app that isn’t themed.

Simply You solves this with brute force numbers and smart engineering.

1. The Massive Library (25,000+ Icons)

The store listing boasts over 25,000 icons included, covering more than 45,000 apps. This is a staggering number. To put this in perspective, the average user has between 60 to 100 apps installed. The likelihood of you finding an app on your phone that isn’t covered by Simply You is statistically incredibly low.

This coverage extends to:

• System Apps: Calculator, Calendar, Camera, Settings.
• Google Ecosystem: Every niche Google app, from “Google Home” to “Google Arts & Culture.”
• OEM Apps: Stock apps from Samsung, OnePlus, Xiaomi, and Motorola are all themed, ensuring that no matter what brand of phone you use, the bloatware looks beautiful.
• Regional Apps: Unlike many western-centric packs, Simply You includes support for apps popular in Asia, Europe, and South America (e.g., Line, KakaoTalk, regional banking apps).

2. Seamless Day & Night Transition

We live in an era of Dark Mode. A truly premium icon pack must look good against a white background (Day Mode) and a black background (Night Mode). Simply You handles this transition natively. Because the icons pull from system colors, they automatically adjust their contrast based on the system theme.

• Day Mode: Icons use darker, more saturated accents to remain visible against light wallpapers.
• Night Mode: Icons shift to pastel, desaturated, or brighter tones to “pop” against dark backgrounds without causing eye strain.

3. Icon Masking: No App Left Behind

Even with 25,000 icons, there will always be that one obscure app—maybe a local gym app or a niche developer tool—that hasn’t been manually themed yet. Simply You utilizes advanced Icon Masking. Instead of leaving the unthemed icon raw, the pack applies a “filter” over it. It takes the original icon, desaturates it, and tints it with the current Material You accent color. While it won’t look as perfect as a hand-crafted vector icon, it ensures that the app doesn’t break your color scheme. It blends in well enough that you might not even notice it wasn’t natively supported.

Technical Performance and Compatibility

An icon pack is only as good as the launchers it supports. PizzApp Design has ensured broad compatibility, making this pack accessible to almost every Android enthusiast.

Supported Launchers

The pack supports all major third-party launchers:

• Nova Launcher: The gold standard for customization.
• Niagara Launcher: A minimalist favorite (Simply You looks exceptionally good here due to the list-based layout).
• Lawnchair: The open-source Pixel Launcher alternative.
• Smart Launcher, Hyperion, Action Launcher, etc.

OEM Launcher Support (Samsung, Pixel, etc.)

Historically, stock launchers (like One UI Home or Pixel Launcher) did not support icon packs. However, Simply You has workarounds:

• Samsung One UI: Users can use the “Theme Park” Good Lock module to apply Simply You to the stock Samsung launcher.
• Pixel Launcher: While the Pixel launcher is restrictive, users can use the “Shortcut Maker” app to apply these icons individually, though using a launcher like Lawnchair is recommended for the full experience.

The Dashboard

The app uses a dashboard based on the open-source “CandyBar” blueprint (credited to Dani Mahardhika and Sarsamurmu). This dashboard is:

• Clean: Easy to navigate.
• Functional: It has a built-in “Request Tool.” If you find missing icons, you can select them and send a request directly to the developer with one tap.
• Wallpaper Picker: The app includes a selection of exclusive, abstract wallpapers designed specifically to showcase the icon colors.

The Economics of Customization: Is it Worth $0.99?

At the time of writing, Simply You is priced at approximately $0.99. In a world of free-to-play games and subscription services, a one-time payment of a dollar is negligible, yet some users still hesitate.

Why You Should Pay

1. Continuous Updates: The changelog shows frequent updates (e.g., v6.0 adding 300+ new icons). This is manual labor. The developer is drawing vectors for new apps every week. Your dollar funds this maintenance.
2. No Ads: The app is clean. No intrusive banner ads or pop-ups.
3. Premium Requests: Buying the app usually grants you a certain number of free icon requests, ensuring your specific niche apps get themed.
4. Supporting Independent Design: PizzApp Design is an independent developer. Supporting them ensures the Android ecosystem remains vibrant and diverse, rather than being dominated by corporate, unchangeable interfaces.

User Experience: A Walkthrough

Let’s imagine the setup process to illustrate the user experience.

Step 1: Installation You purchase and download the app from the Play Store. It’s a small download, optimized for storage.

Step 2: The Dashboard Opening the app, you are greeted by a Material You interface. The dashboard itself is themed to your wallpaper. A “Apply” button is prominent.

Step 3: Applying the Pack You tap “Apply.” If you have Nova Launcher installed, it detects it immediately. You confirm, and boom—your screen transforms.

Step 4: The Result You go to your home screen. You have a “Forest” wallpaper.

• WhatsApp is no longer a jarring bright green; it is a soft, muted seafoam.
• YouTube is not a screaming red; it is a subtle terracotta or rust color, blending with the tree trunks in your wallpaper.
• Gmail strips away the multicolored envelope and becomes a clean, single-tone glyph.

The visual relief is instant. The cognitive load of your home screen drops because the colors are harmonized. It feels like a calm, organized workspace rather than a billboard of competing brands.

Step 5: The Details You notice the Dynamic Calendar. The icon for your calendar app actually shows the correct date (e.g., “26”) rather than a generic calendar image. This is a small detail, but one that adds significant utility.

Comparison: Simply You vs. The Competition

There are other “Material You” icon packs. Why choose this one?

Simply You vs. Pix Material You Colours

Pix Material You is another heavy hitter. However, Simply You often edges it out in terms of the “Shapeless” aesthetic. Pix Material You often relies on circle backgrounds for unthemed apps, whereas Simply You is more aggressive about maintaining the shapeless look, which feels more modern.

Simply You vs. Lawnicons

Lawnicons is free and open-source. However, its library is significantly smaller. It lacks the 25,000+ coverage of Simply You. If you use niche apps, Lawnicons will leave you with a “checkerboard” homescreen of themed and unthemed icons. Simply You offers consistency.

Simply You vs. Whicons/Flight (Static Packs)

Classic white or black icon packs are great, but they are boring. They don’t react to your wallpaper. If you get bored of white icons, you have to download a whole new pack. With Simply You, you just change your wallpaper, and you have a “new” icon pack instantly.

Pros and Cons Summary

Pros

• Aesthetics: The shapeless, material design is stunning and strictly adheres to Google’s design guidelines.
• Dynamic Theming: Instant adaptation to wallpaper colors is seamless.
• Coverage: 25,000+ icons is industry-leading coverage.
• Support: Active developer, frequent updates, and responsive email support (as seen in Play Store reviews).
• Price: Extremely affordable for the value provided.
• Masking: Excellent handling of unsupported apps.

Cons

• Launcher Dependency: Like all icon packs, it requires a compatible launcher (Nova, Lawnchair, etc.) to work best. Users on stock Pixel or One UI launchers have to jump through hoops (Shortcut Maker/Theme Park) to use it. This is an Android limitation, not the app’s fault, but it is a hurdle for casual users.
• Colors Glitches (Rare): As noted in some reviews, specific device/OS combinations (like Android 15 betas or specific OEM skins) might occasionally cause color syncing delays, though a restart usually fixes this.

Conclusion: The Must-Have App for Design Purists

“Simply You” is not just an icon pack; it is the final piece of the puzzle for the Android experience. Google gave us the engine for dynamic theming with Material You, but PizzApp Design gave us the tires to actually drive it.

For the price of less than a cup of coffee, you get an interface that looks professionally designed, feels incredibly personal, and adapts to your mood every single day. If you are tired of the visual clutter of standard app icons and want your phone to feel like a cohesive, digital extension of your style, Simply You is the best dollar you will spend on the Play Store this year.

It turns your smartphone from a tool into an accessory. It is minimal, it is functional, and true to its name, it is simply… you.