Google finally officially announced their Android 12 on October 4, 2021. Earlier this year, the tech giant showcased a preview of the new OS at the Google I/O. We also got to see quite a few beta builds of the OS. Now, the tech giant has finally dropped the source code of the OS to AOSP (Android Open Source Project).
What this basically means is that we will be getting the brand new Android 12 OS in some time. Google states that over 225,000 people signed up for the Android 12 Beta Build. In addition, the tech giant also unveiled that these users reported over 50,000 bugs in the new OS till now. Google has stated that the new OS will be rolled out to their Pixel series of devices in a couple of weeks. However, an exact date for the rollout is currently under wraps.
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Android 12: Everything New
Changes in Design
One of the first things that one may notice when using Android 12 is the fact that there is a brand new design language. This is called the Material You which allows developers to build more personalised applications. The new Material You element allows developers to build an application that adapts automatically to the user’s preferences. Further, it also improves accessibility features within the UI as well.
In addition, the app widget has also had a makeover of sorts. The new design makes widgets look less crammed up. This makes them look better in Android 12. Besides, widgets also offer interactive controls and responsive layouts as well. Notifications have also had a design change which makes them look more contemporary than conventional. There are also several options to change your splash screen look when launching an application.
Privacy Features
Privacy is of paramount importance in the contemporary world and it is good to see Android 12 bringing in certain features adhering to this. There is a brand new Privacy Dashboard feature in the device’s Settings panel. This offers a streamlined view of all the applications that are using your camera, microphone and location data. In addition, instead of sharing the exact location, users can now share just their approximate location with apps.
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Further, Android 12 OS introduced indicators for when a user’s device microphone and camera are being used by an app. Besides, there is a Quick Settings panel which allows users to quickly disable the apps that are doing so. In addition, users will also be notified when an application is going through the device’s clipboard data.
Performance Boost
There is also a major performance boost that Android 12 brings. According to Google, the CPU time used by core system services has been cut down by 22% on the new Android 12 OS. In addition, they have also claimed the big cores usages to have gone down by 15% on the new OS. Further, Google has also stated that Android 12 brings better app startup times as well.
In addition, the new operating system also prevents apps from starting any additional foreground services when in the background. There is also a Neural Networks API system used in the new OS which promises faster Machine Learning.
Android 12 OS: First Eligible Devices List
Google Pixel users will be getting the update first. Later on, other Android users shall be getting the new Android 12 OS update. These are the Pixel devices that shall be getting the update later on this month:
- Google Pixel 5
- Google Pixel 5a
- Google Pixel 4a and Google Pixel 4a 5G
- Google Pixel 4 and Google Pixel 4XL
- Google Pixel 3 and Google Pixel 3XL
- Google Pixel 3a
- Google Pixel 2 and Google Pixel 2XL
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