Android 12: All the features its bringing for users and developers

Android 12 is an upgrade to Android 11 in every sense. It offers a different user interface, more privacy options, and newer notification system amongst others. This is the first time in a long time that Google is bringing major changes to the Android operating system.

But there is even more you actually get to enjoy with the Android 12. And in this article, I’ll be showing you some of the new features that is coming in this new Google OS for smartphones.

To help you better understand these features, I’ll be skipping the technical grammars and sticking to user languages. I’ll also be making each feature explanation short s that you get to really understand what each feature is all about.

About Android 12

Android 12 is the 12^th edition of the Google Android OS designed for smartphones, tablets, foldable phones, TV’s, and related tech gadgets. It’s dubbed as “Material You” by Google because it is highly customizable by users. The aim of this new operating system to make you feel closer to the OS.

For example, the theme color of your phone would change according to color of your theme screen. This means, for every new Wallpaper you like and activate, the new OS automatically changes color to suit what you like. I’ll be talking more about this and other features below.

So, what other cool stuff is Android 12 bringing? Well, there is quite allot, from its design to widgets and notification, all are getting some tweaks and redesign.

New Quick Notification Design

Android 11 notification panel — Android 12 notification panel

In Android 10 and 11, when you pull down the notification shade you get round icons at the top panel. This has been modified in to rounded rectangles in Android 12. The operations is still same though. You can tap to turn them off or on and long pressing them will take you to the settings page.

This also means that fewer quick notification buttons will be seen at once. For example, in some Android phone in previous Android versions, you can see up to 12 different quick notifications when you slide down. But with the increase in size, you can see only 8 tiles at once.

But what is most fun is that the colors of the quick notification is same as the color of the theme you’re using. Just as you can see from the picture above.

New design and color extraction

When Google said in its Google I/O 2021 that the design of the Android 12 will be the biggest visual change in years, they weren’t joking. This why they nick named the new OS as Material You. The goal is to allow users have some level of influence over the design.

Using a color extraction protocol, Android 12 will be able to extract colors from activated wallpapers. This simply means that, color of the whole system will change depending the background of your home/lock screen. And anytime you change the theme, the color changes to the new background home/lock screen.

Privacy and Security

Just like Apple, Google is also bringing transparency in the data collection by advertisers in Android 12. Google has included new tools that gives you (users) more control over what data app have access to.

They can also get to see how much of their information an app is using, how often the apps accesses these information, and what these apps use them for.

Android 12 is coming with a new Privacy Dashboard that shows you detailed summary of how apps access your information. The summary of the numbers of apps accessing your location, camera, and microphone in the past 24 hours can be found in the privacy dashboard.

Also, in the Privacy Dashboard, you have access to make changes to app permissions. A Manage Permissions setting is available on the timeline view age where you can revoke app permission for any application you want.

Improved Notifications

There is no huge physical change coming to the notification in Android 12. But there are some key improvements that is worth mentioning. The notification now has improved aesthetics, usability, and functionality. Google is making some few tweaks to the drawer, controls, and improving transitions and animations for the notification.

With Android 12 notification, tapping a notification will direct you straight to the related App. This is not a new feature but Google is working on making the process works faster and be more responsive.

Quick Tap Feature

*Android-12 Quick Tap feature | image: Android Authority*

The Quick Tap feature might be only available for Google Pixel phones. This feature allows you to lets users snag screenshots, open the notification shade, or launch Google Assistant with a simple double-tap on the back of the device.

The feature is nicknamed Columbus and Google also allows you to adjust the sensitivity of double-taps or disable them entirely if you don’t like it.

Back when Android 11 was in beta stage, this feature was tested but never made it to the final release. But, we can confirm that the Quick Tap feature will be available in Android 12.

App Hibernation

If you have an app or apps that you don’t use frequently but you don’t want to uninstall them, well Android 12 has something cool for you. With App Hibernation or “Unused apps” feature, you can keep apps idle for some time and stop them from taking up your phone storage.

With this feature, you can revoke unused app of its permissions, clear temporary files and cache claimed by that app. You can also restrict notifications for these apps. This feature will be available in the App Info section of every app.

You can just toggle it on and save some storage in your device. Granted, Android phones with huge storage won’t need this feature that much. But this feature will be very useful to entry phones with small storage space.

Updated Emoji

More than 389 updates to emoji designs will be added in Android 12. Note that the changes won’t be much.

From the picture above, you’ll see that the emoji is updated and not looking like they use to in previous Android versions. For example, the syringe no longer has a blood-red liquid (presumably to encourage vaccination, like with Apple’s emoji).

The sunrise, shopping cart, umbrella, and calendar are all getting updated. Point is, you’ll be getting some changes in designs of the emoji that will be available in Android 12.

Other confirmed features of Android 12

Immersive mode tweaks: Gesture navigation within immersive mode will be “easier and more consistent” in Android 12.
Screenshot markups: You will now be able to do more editing when you take screenshots on your device. Adding things like emoji in your screenshot will no longer need you to install a third-party app.
Universal splash screens: Android 12 will have one build splash screen for every app. This way, any app you open will display this particular splash screen.
Redesigned Settings pages: There is a slight redesign with a smaller search bar with rounded corners in the settings.
Inserting Rich content: Google is giving users more control over rich media through the keyboard, clipboard, and drag and drop.
Internet panel: Tapping the “Internet” Quick Tile, it won’t take you to the Wi-Fi section of Settings. Instead, a new window will pop up that gives you quick access to the most common networking options.
Easy audio source selection: The media player that appears in your Quick Settings section in Android 11 is now more customizable. By long-pressing the notification and heading into its specific settings, you can turn on or off the apps with which the player should work.

More Android 12 features mostly for developers

Transcoding compatible media
Support for AVIF image
Multi-channel audio
Background apps will no longer be able to launch service from background
No apps will be able to access Netlink MAC
Google is improving Android 12’s latency and workload distribution, which should yield performance improvements to key system processes.
Android 12 developer preview will now be available for bigger screen including Android TV’s

Some of the Android 12 features above are coming for users and developers. So, you should be able to make use of these features when the software is finally release by August. There are also rumors about other features that Google is bringing.

We’ll have to wait for the final version to confirm these rumors. But tell us, what do you think of the changes Android 12 is bringing? Use the comment section below.