Google removes Androidify avatar maker from Play Store

Released back in 2011, Androidify lets you create a custom Android avatar of yourself and others. The Android app has been updated over the years, but was recently removed from the Google Play Store.

Extremely customizable, Androidify starts by letting you choose a skin tone for your droid or stick to the default bright green. In addition to adjusting length and width, body features include hair types and color.

There’s then a whole range of clothing, pants, shoes, hats, scarves, and miscellaneous items to hold like cameras or phones — specifically a Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P. Google touts a quintillion (1,490,248,844,407,008,000) clothing and accessory combinations. This experience was very much a part of Google’s previous “be together, not the same” branding campaign from 2014.

Androidify was born out of the spirit of the Android operating system-a system that lets anyone make, build, offer or buy all sorts of things, but in a way that helps all those things work together. Even the Android mascot is open source. So go ahead… use Androidify to turn the little green mascot into your own creation.

The Androidify app saw its last mobile update in 2016 — thus missing out on many recent OS changes, and removed in recent days from Google Play. It was not revamped with the subtle mascot tweaks that followed Google’s decision last year to drop dessert naming for releases:

The body of the robot remains unchanged, but the head sees a minor tweak to the position of the antennae. This logo also moves the eyes slightly down “to bring more humanity.” According to Gandon, “the robot eye use to be high and did not feel like humans. When you take them down a bit, they actually really have contact with you.” Meanwhile, Google is also having fun animating the features of the face.

According to Google, the decision to remove Androidify comes from declining app usage and age. The website will follow shortly, but can still be accessed at androidify.com until then.

Thanks Michael