Awaken the Force Inside Your Google Apps

Star Wars The Force Awakens is scheduled to premiere on Dec.18, and director J.J. Abrams has confirmed that he has finished the film’s final cut. Your location icon will either be a Tie Fighter or an X-wing – while they may appear subtle, they’re incredibly neat hints at the upcoming movie and an awesome feature for Star Wars fans.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the first Star Wars movie made without Lucas’ involvement, will arrive in cinemas on December 17th. Choose the Dark Side, and you’ll see a lot of black; choose the Light, and your apps will adjust accordingly. For example, Google Maps will show iconic Star Wars vehicles marking your location, Gmail gets a Star Wars theme and wallpaper, and if you visit Google Play, you’ll find an updated version of Disney’s Star Wars app. Then watch as Android Wear, Google Calendar (scroll to December), Chromecast, Inbox, Google Translate, and Waze awaken the Force within you. You could choose a special Gmail style that’ll change the application’s background and make your packing bar a lightsaber.

The company is also keeping track of the “balance of the force” by displaying which side is being chosen more over the other. This is a great move for Google, and an even better way for MORE Star Wars advertising to get out there, not like we really need anymore (just kidding).

If you’re one of the latter people don’t read on.

Check out google.com/starwars to get access to the undeniably cool overlays. Google Maps turns its little Street View man into a stormtrooper (at least, it did for me when I chose the dark side’s black-and-red color scheme).

The changes should disappear to a galaxy far away, come February 2016.