This upcoming Android theme makes your phone look like it’s running Windows 10

If you’re the kind of person that gets OS homesick when forced away from your Windows machine, then you’re going to want to keep an eye on this upcoming Android theme.

Posted on Reddit by the enigmatically named 2073521, the work in progress shows what might have been had Windows Phone not died a slow and painful death over the last decade. 

The screengrab shows a Start menu with live tiles, the taskbar and desktop icons. There’s even a Recycling Bin, which is presumably only for show given the lack of a parallel feature on Android.   

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For the full experience, you could always add in the Cortana app for Android, but you may want to stop short of making Bing your default search engine, though. And as one poster noted: “0/10 no Candy Crush ads.”

For now, the theme is a work in progress, but a video will likely be coming soon given the huge flurry of interest from the Android themes subreddit. The creator says the theme uses the Nova launcher paired with Whicons and KLWP icon packs, should you want to try your own similar project. 

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If nothing else, giving your phone a Windows-themed lick of paint should keep you going until Microsoft makes its long-anticipated return to the world of smartphones with the Surface Duo. The handset is a different take on the folding phone, with two independent 5.6-inch screens connected by a hinge.

If you’re wondering how that could work in practice, Microsoft has already released a SDK (software development kit) for devs keen to start adapting their apps for the brave new world dual-screen Android. 

If that sounds too much like hard work, then you’ll just have to wait for the official release date, which hasn’t been confirmed yet, but should be before the year is out. Suffice it to say, there are a few kinks to be worked out before then.