Black Pie – Icon Pack

About Black Pie – Icon Pack

So I downloaded Black Pie about five weeks ago on my Google Pixel 7 because my old icon pack started doing this thing where it would just randomly reset my icons to default every few days. Drove me nuts. I wanted something that looked sleek and modern without being too flashy, and this one seemed to fit the bill with that dark matte vibe. I’m not someone who spends hours tweaking my home screen, but I do appreciate when things look put together. This pack gives off that minimalist, expensive feel without trying too hard. I’ve been using it every day since, and honestly, it’s the first time my phone actually looks like it belongs in 2023 instead of 2015.

Core Features

You get over 600 icons out of the box, which sounds like a lot but honestly, with how many apps I have, I still ended up having some apps with no custom icon. That’s fine though, it covers the big ones like Instagram, Spotify, Gmail, and my banking app. The color scheme stays strictly black and white with some gray tones, so your whole screen feels cohesive. I really like the dynamic calendar thing — my calendar icon actually shows the correct date number, which is a small touch but feels polished. The app comes with a few wallpapers too, but I didn’t use them because I have my own photo on there. There’s also an icon request tool where you can ask them to add missing ones, but I’ll get to my experience with that later. The dashboard for applying and managing everything is simple enough, even for someone like me who usually breaks things by accident.

Real-World Use

Setting it up took maybe ten minutes tops. I use Nova Launcher, and the app walked me through applying the icons without needing to google anything. Last Tuesday morning, I was sitting in my car waiting for my daughter to get out of dance class, and I spent like fifteen minutes just rearranging my home screen because the icons looked so clean together. Everything felt fresh. The only real hiccup was this one Wednesday night when I opened my phone and some icons turned back to the default ugly squares. I restarted my phone, reapplied the theme from the app dashboard, and it fixed it. Hasn’t happened since, but it was annoying in the moment. The icons themselves look sharp on my Pixel 7’s screen, no weird blurring or pixel edges. I do wish there were more color options sometimes — not neon or anything, but maybe like a dark blue or charcoal variant. Some days the pure black-and-white feels a little flat.

Pricing & Value

I paid for this app — I think it was around $1.99 or something like that. For what you get, it’s not bad. I’ve spent more on a coffee that lasted ten minutes, and this thing has been on my phone for over a month. The amount of icons and the fact they keep adding more makes it feel worth it. That said, I don’t love paying for an app and then still having holes in my icon theme where apps aren’t supported. Other free icon packs I’ve used had bigger catalogs. But the quality here is higher. The edges are crisp, the design is consistent, and my phone doesn’t look like a cluttered mess anymore. If you’re the type of person who needs every single app themed, you might get frustrated. But if you’re okay with a few defaults mixed in, this is solid for the price.

Updates & Support

Here’s where I got a little annoyed. I submitted an icon request for my grocery pickup app about three weeks ago through the built-in tool. It took almost a week to get any kind of response, and when they replied, it was this generic message saying something like “we will consider it for future updates.” No timeline, no “we’ll add it next month,” just nothing concrete. I get that they’re probably busy, but it felt like a copy-paste answer. I emailed support separately asking about it, and they took four days to get back to me, and again it was really vague. I wasn’t asking for much, just a “hey, we’re working on it.” I still don’t know if that icon is ever coming. The app itself has pushed two updates since I’ve had it, which is good, but the communication side leaves me feeling like I’m talking to a wall.

Data & Privacy

The app asks for some permissions to apply icons and access your launcher settings, which makes sense. I didn’t see anything sketchy like it trying to read my contacts or location. It just needs permission to modify your home screen stuff. The privacy policy is in the app settings, and I glanced at it — seemed standard, nothing alarming. I’m not super paranoid about this stuff, but I do pay attention if an app asks for way more than it should. This one didn’t, so I felt fine using it. No creepy ads popping up either, which is a relief for a paid app. Honestly, it just sits there and does its job without bothering me.