Android's new 3D robot: Coming soon to a boot screen near you

Happy New Year! Hope y'all had a wonderful break. I've had a lot of time to unwind and relax with family and friends, but I'm ready to kick things into high gear once again. I have quite a big backlog of content to get through, and this first one just happens to be perfectly timed since the new bootup requirement just went into effect the other day. 

What is the new bootup requirement? New devices launching this year are required to use Android's new bootup co-branding. This consists of the "Powered by Android" wordmark plus the new 3D bugdroid that was unveiled back in September. Here's an example of what this will look like:

Google has long required OEMs to use the "Powered by Android" bootup co-branding if they want to get GMS certification. Whenever Google updates Android's branding, they also update the bootup co-branding so that the new branding will appear on the splash screen of Android devices. The purpose of this bootup co-branding is, according to Google, to "[allow] consumers to identify devices that are Android compatible, meaning Android apps in the ecosystem provide a consistent experience when running on [their] device[s]."

It's been nearly 4 months since Google updated Android's branding, but we shouldn't have to wait long for it to appear on consumer Android devices. According to the GMS Requirements document, all devices launching on or after January 1, 2024, must use the new bootup co-branding. Devices upgrading to Android 12 or higher, however, are only "STRONGLY RECOMMENDED" to use the new branding. Thus, my guess is that the first high-profile devices we'll see this branding on will be Samsung's Galaxy S24 series. Perhaps Google will update the Pixel's splash screen to use the new Android branding, but I have no idea if others will follow suit.

There are a few different variations of the bootup co-branding, so it may not appear exactly as what's shown above. Two of the variations are shown in this post. The primary variant has the 3D robot on the same line as the "Android" text in the "Powered by Android" wordmark, while the secondary variant has the 3D robot below the "Android" text. The primary variant is placed in the center of the screen and is used when no other logo needs to be featured, while the secondary variant is used when another logo needs to be shown (such as an OEM/carrier logo). Then there's also an Android (Go edition) variant of the bootup mark. All three of these variants are shown below.

Each variation also comes in different colors. These include primary full color, inverted full color, monochrome white, and monochrome black. Google also still offers two "flat" color versions of the Android robot in lieu of the 3D colored one. The monochrome versions, by nature, feature the "flat" version of the Android robot.

Android's brand guidelines are quite simple, but the exact details aren't public, so thank you to my tipster for sharing this information!