All You Need to Know About Android 12 Developer Preview

March 6, 2021

Reading time about 5 minutes

Google unveiled the first developer preview of Android 12 giving users a sneak peek of what can we expect in the major Android Update. As we now have access to the first development of OS, we can simply install it on our smartphone and check out the confirmed features of Android 12 Developer Preview.

Which phones support the Android 12 developer preview as of now? Here’s the list!

  • Google Pixel 5
  • Google Pixel 4
  • Google Pixel 4 XL
  • Google Pixel 4a
  • Google Pixel 4a 5G
  • Google Pixel 3
  • Google Pixel 3 XL
  • Google Pixel 3a
  • Google Pixel 3a XL

What are the Major Features of the Update?

Right from the basic enhancements to launching many facets, Google has introduced various upgrades including changes to notification support and media handling, better-polished notifications UI, and enhancements to better feedback and privacy. Curious to get more insights? Here are the 10 major features we bet you would simply love!

  • AVIF Image Support

The new Android 12 launched AVIF image support. To further clarify, it is an open and royalty-free image format based on the AVI codec. Being royalty-free makes it one of the best choices in comparison to the competitors. This image format ensures a better-enhanced quality of images than JPEG with no hassles of larger-sized files, as it uses the open-source video code AVI. So next time you willing to send some pictures as a mail attachment, they might not necessarily be a google drive link!

  • Lock Screen

Android 12 has introduced a very interesting feature of the lock screen having a translucent background layer. While the cherry on the cake being, an animation for the unlock pattern which is way more lively and adds as a treat to the eyes.

  • Wi-Fi Sharing is Easy & Smooth

Often tangled for complex wi-fi sharing options? This time you can ditch the barcode scanning in Android 12 and simply click on the “Nearby” option right under the OR code. Wondering what good it can do? It will utilize the Nearby Share feature of Android to transfer the Wi-Fi details to anybody you want. Also, the QR code scanning can help you in sharing the connection details with as many people you need without needing your phone to scan for everyone!

  • Better Accessibility Settings

Android 12 gets you an improved accessibility settings menu that is more interactive and appealing. However, the major options are easily available on the main menu/homepage but the detailed or lesser-used options including color correction, display size, and font size are categorized under accessibility settings.

  • Flexible Content Insertion

Google has launched a new unified API allowing to accept the content from every source including drag and drop, keyboard, or clipboard. To elaborate more, when you insert content via any system, you can simply attach a new interface, OnReceiveContentListener (listener for apps to implement handling for insertion of content, the content can be both text or non-text) to user interface elements and receive a callback. This particular callback later becomes the only place for the code to handle all content insertion, right from the styles and plain text to images, markup, audio files, videos, and so on.

  • Enabling Haptic-Paired Audio Effects

Recently Google-enabled developers to integrate haptic feedback patterns with the audio. The most interesting part is that the strength and tenure of vibrations are particularly taken from audio cues which end up adding an excellent effect or an extra layer of engagement on alerts and media playbacks.

  • Multi-Channel Audio

Keeping aside everything, this feature is a complete showstopper! Android 12 comes in with remarkable improvements for audio with structural data. It includes assistance for MPEG-H playback in offload and pass-through mode, alongside audio mixers, resamples, and effects optimized for almost 24 channels!

  • Enhanced Cookie Management

Cookies are inevitable in most cases and Android 12 is willing to make it more manageable and smoother in case the android app developers need to restrict cookies to a particular site. This feature is set to enhance the cookie management of Android 12 all across various applications and OS. While the top android browsers are already supporting this feature.

  • Android Updates through Google Play

Google is all set to make an investment in the Google Play system updated to offer the applications with a better secured and stable environment across the gadgets. Android 12 has added an Android Runtime module allowing it to push updates to the basic runtime and libraries on gadgets that run

Android 12. Additionally, it has also maximized the functions of the current module, for example, Google offers its compatible media transcoding feature within an easy to update module.

  • Easy Testing and Debugging

Testing is an imperative feature every android app development company swears by! While the process is a bit complex, Android 12 brings an easier alternative to test the opt-in transformations which can impact their mobile applications. Google has now made many of them easy to manage. By using the toggles, developers can themselves enable and disable the changes separately from ADB or Developer options.

Final Thoughts

With the features seeming extremely exciting, why waste a minute more? Get your Android 12 Developer preview installed on your smartphone! Here the catch is, you firstly need to set up your smartphone for installing, make your settings done and move to download the files from Android’s official website. There’s a lot more in store, get more detailed updates from an android app development company in San Jose and experience the enhanced feasibility and features on your android device