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Diving into M: Android M will let devs use dark icons on a light status bar

As we all dive into Android M, we’re learning about new features all the time and a post over on Google+ suggests that we could see icons in the status bar flip from white to dark depending on the app and the color of the app’s status bar.
As noted by Droid-Life, a developer can turn on “android:windowLightStatusBar” in the theme of their app and the system will switch to a dark foreground. On certain devices and in certain apps, we’ve already seen that white status bar icons barely show up on a light background and as long as app developers enable this feature, it could solve this ongoing problem.
At present, the preview of Android M has a bug which means that this will only change the status icons to dark, leaving notifications in white but this is likely due to the preview nature of Android M and should be fixed before the release of the platform later this year.
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For more on Google’s latest OS, head over to our Diving Into M section, check out our first look at Android M and look at the links below:
- Watch the full Google I/O keynote
- A look at the new Google Photos app
- Announcement roundup: all the big news in one place
- Android M developers preview images
- Android M: everything you need to know
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