Cyanogen 12 will let you theme individual apps, paid themes also coming

With Cyanogen 12 (Lollipop-based) expected by the end of the month, the Cyanogen team announced two new features coming to the OS: individual app theming and paid themes.

Extensive theming is one of the core features of Cyanogen OS (as well as the non-commercial CyanogenMod project), and a lively community of modders and themers has sprung up around it. The new features coming to Cyanogen 12 should boost activity in this budding ecosystem.

First up, App Themer will let users select specific themes for individual apps. Accessible from the Theme Chooser, the feature only allows selecting one of the installed themes, so you won’t be able to manually tweak the appearance of apps. However, the feature should still be very helpful for the times when the system theme doesn’t look good on a specific app or when you simply prefer some apps to look different. There’s no limit on how many apps you can theme or how many different themes you can use.

The second feature, paid themes, has long been requested by Cyanogen themers looking to monetize their work. Free themes will continue to be available, but it’s safe to assume that many high quality themes will be paid going forward. You will need a Play Store account to buy themes.

The new features will roll out as part of the Cyanogen 12S update coming over the air to the OnePlus One on or before March 30. The Yureka Yu and Alcatel OneTouch Hero 2+ will also receive the update via OTA in the coming weeks or months.