Soot & Summer

Tap Let them out at the top of Pets. The first time, Android asks you to allow Display over other apps for Soot & Summer: turn it on, come back, and out they come.

Yes: in the app's Help tab, open this question and tap Show the intro again. Your pets show you how to tap, pet and carry them, then you pick Touch and Sounds again.

That's what lets your pets walk on top of the apps you use. They only feel where your finger touches them, and notice when a keyboard is open so they can turn Tiny; they never read what's on your screen or what you type.

Android needs one while your pets are out. It's handy too: Touch (tap to step through On, Shy and Off), Bed, and Hide pets are right there, and tapping it opens the app.

Put them away at the top of Pets takes them off the screen. Send to bed keeps them, asleep in their bed. Hide pets in the notification hides them until you tap Show pets. Quicker still: add the Pets tile to Quick Settings (swipe down, tap the pencil, drag Pets in), then tap it to hide or show them.

• Tap: a hello.
• Pet (slide your finger back and forth): happy sounds and hearts.
• Hold and drag: pick a pet up and carry it around.
• Double-tap: opens the pet's double-tap app.
• Tap a sleeping pet: it half wakes up.
• Tap the bed: wakes them up (with Bed in the corner: invites one for a nap).

Each pet can open an app of your choice when you double-tap it. On Pets, find the pet's card and tap the Double-tap opens tile once → Pick an app.

• On: tap, pet and pick up your pets.
• Shy: they look as usual, but any touch sends them away, and they come back when you leave the phone alone. Choose how they leave (Peek, Move away or Disappear) and how soon they come back.
• Off: your taps go to the app below, handy for texting.

You'll find Touch on Pets, in Settings, and in the notification.

It keeps your pets out of the way while you play. It starts on Auto; change it in Settings:

• Auto: when a game or video fills the screen, they leave the way you pick under How they leave (Peek, Move away or Disappear, the same as Shy's), and come back once it ends. Touch works as usual the rest of the time.
• On: hold a pet still for 3 seconds (with Touch on Shy, any touch) and they all duck down, ears and eyes peeking up from the bottom, while your taps go to the game. Set Touch again, or turn Gaming mode off, to bring them up.
• Off: they stay where they are, full screen or not.

Yes. Swipe down from the top, tap the pencil (edit), and drag the Pets tile in. Tap it to Hide pets or Show pets, or to let them out when they're not out. Hold it to open the app.

Yes. On Pets, find the pet's card and pick Sleepy, Balanced or Zoomy, or tap Custom to set how much they nap, climb and get the zoomies. Summer starts Zoomy, Soot starts Sleepy.

Yes: on the pet's card on Pets, slide Weight from Normal to Chonky.

They curl up in it when you Send to bed. Turn on Bed in the corner in Settings and it stays in the corner while they're awake, for naps. Tap Choose bed on Pets to pick another one.

Yes: Settings › App colours has ten colours, each in Dark or Light, all free. They change the app's pages only; your pets look the same.

That's Keep pets in view: while the app is open, its pages stop above your pets so you can see them as you change looks and hats. The pages still scroll. Turn it off in Settings to have the pages fill the screen again.

Their floor becomes a wall: they cling on or slide down, and sometimes hop in surprise. Don't want that? Turn off Turning the phone in Settings.

Most often your phone is saving battery and closed the app. Go to Settings → Apps → Soot & Summer → Battery → Unrestricted.

Set Touch to Off and your taps go to the app below. Or Shy: one touch and they get out of your way.

When a keyboard opens, they turn Tiny and move to the very bottom, out of the way of the keys, and grow back to their size when it closes: Tiny while typing in Settings (on at first; not when Touch is Shy). Some keyboards (a floating one) aren't noticed; then they stay as they are.

In Settings, Floor height moves where they stand (Lowest, Low, High or Custom), and How near the sides sets where they turn back and climb (At the side, A bit in, Further in or Custom). Pick Custom and slide: they move as you do.

Check Sounds is on in Settings and the Volume slider under it. They're quiet when your phone is on silent.

Yes, with any pack: Add a pet on Pets, up to 4 more besides Summer and Soot. Give each one a look, a hat, a name and its own double-tap app.

Tap the pet on the Pets page. To rename it, tap ✎ next to its name: with any pack every pet can be renamed, Summer and Soot too (without one, the extra pets). Remove is at the bottom of its options (extra pets only). Its switch says Comes out or Stays in, so a pet can sit out for a while without being removed.

Each pet has its own Size slider on its card, Tiny to Huge, so a big dog can stand taller than a small cat. Size in Settings sets every pet to Small, Medium or Large at once, and overwrites each pet's own size.

With the Cat Pack: choose a look, then tap From a photo. Pick a photo of your cat, then tap its fur, stripes and patches to copy the colours. The photo stays on your phone and isn't kept; only the colours you pick are saved.

Where you try on anything (looks, hats, beds, even pets from packs you don't have) as much as you like. Everything comes off when you leave. Trying looks from two packs? Keep them all gets them together: Google Play asks about each one in turn.

Open the Photo booth on Pets. Drag your pets around, pinch to resize, twist two fingers to turn them, tap one for poses and faces, then Share, or Save (Android 10 and up).

Tap Play park on Pets and the whole screen becomes a park: every pet comes in to play, even ones that stay in, and they're always solid to your touch. Pick Outdoor or Indoor at the top. Tap 📷 and then Snap to take a photo: your pets pause where they are and open in the Photo booth. Leave with ‹ or your phone's back gesture, and everything goes back as it was.

Yes: Holiday hats & beds in Settings. Off, holiday hats and beds are put away (a holiday bed goes back to the rug) until you turn it on again.

Pick a city and how far ahead to look in Settings, Weather outfits, and your pets dress for the forecast: sun hat, sunglasses, woolly hat, rain hat, umbrella or fan. Weather in the next 3 days always counts; later days only when it's most of them. Each pet's card has its own switch. Comes with any pack.

Summer and Soot, with every look in the Free tab: a yellow lab and a red panda among them.

Each pack adds its own pets and looks, and with any pack you can add more pets, plus hats and beds. The Packs page shows what's in each one. You can try everything in the Fitting Room first.

Packs come back by themselves when you open the app, as long as the phone uses the same Google account you bought them with. A purchase that's still waiting on Google Play shows up once it goes through.

When Google Play has a newer version, a row at the top of Pets says Update ›. It downloads while you keep playing, then tap Restart › and your pets come back out.

Your pets rest most of the time, and they stop moving when the screen is off or when you tap Hide pets. For none at all, tap Put them away. Most phones show Soot & Summer's battery use in Settings → Battery, so you can check it yourself.

Your settings, the app you pick for double-tap and any photo you use stay on your phone. To let you pick a double-tap app, it lists the apps on your phone; that list never leaves it. If you have Android backup on, your settings go into your own phone backup in your Google account; we never see them. Only a few things leave the phone:

• Weather outfits, only if you turn them on: the city you type goes to your phone's map lookup, and a rough spot (about 10 km) goes to our forecast relay to fetch the weather.
• What Google Play needs to sell a pack or tell you an update is ready.
• A date check around launch, for the launch gifts.

No accounts, no ads, no tracking. The full privacy policy is on our website.

Tap Put them away, then uninstall it like any app. Pictures you saved from the Photo booth stay in Pictures › Soot & Summer.