Android 12’s First Developer Preview Out With Exciting Features
A new version of android’s first developer preview has been released for testing and feedback. Every time Android comes with the latest version to build an OS smarter, simpler to use, more reliable performance, with more privacy and security focus. Dave Burke, VP of Engineering at Android reveals that they provide new tools to build a better experience for users in Android 12, including features like compatible media transcoding which supports the latest video formats, and simply insert rich content such as images and videos into your app. They are also providing privacy protections and optimizing performance to make the apps better responsive and many more.
As there is a huge crowd of people who rely on android apps on a daily basis, their needs and demands towards a better user experience are booming rapidly. The aim of writing this post is to give you a glimpse of the interesting features of Android 12. We understand your curiosity to know about the latest version, so here we go!!
Notification Enhancements
As compared to the previous versions, notifications will be more user-friendly and agile in Android 12. The notification area has been enhanced with seamless transitions and twists in this version. Google launches a translucent background in the notification layer which is not in Android 11. Color changed but the icons remain the same.
Notification snoozing is available from the Oreo version but a bit complex to utilize. Now, A single snooze button is available with ease of access under the category of the notifications.
Notification Ranking: In the first developer preview, the user can turn on adaptive notification priority and adaptive notification ranking. With this access, android reorganizes notifications based on the interactions with various apps. If it would not be appropriate and inconvenient for the user, then a reset option is also available. What a convenience!
Rich Content Insertion
To make the content insertion simpler, Android introduces a new unified API that enables you to accept content from every source such as the keyboard, clipboard, drag and drop. Whenever you can insert the content from any device, you can attach a new interface, OnReceiveContentListener, to UI segments and receive a callback. This callback is the only spot for the code to deal with all content insertion, from styled and plain text to images, markup, audio files, videos, and many more.
Nearby Share for WiFi Passwords
Sharing the Wi-Fi password through the Nearby Share in Android 12 becomes easier as you can share your Wi-Fi password in the QR code form. Grateful to the Wi-Fi Easy Connect protocol for accessing Wi-Fi on other devices by scanning QR code makes the process more reliable and secure to add new devices.
Haptic-Paired Audio Effects
With Android 12, Google is allowing developers to pair haptic feedback patterns with audio. The durability and strength of vibrations are acquired from audio signals that insert an additional engaging layer to alerts or media playback.
Multi-channel Audio
In Android 12, few improvements occurred for audio with spatial information. It includes support for MPEG-H playback in passthrough and offloads mode, the audio mixers, resamplers, and effects have been enhanced for up to 24 channels. (Earlier it was a maximum of 8)
Hidden Selfie Camera on Pixel 5
Android 12 provides a new option for Pixel 5 users that fill in the status bar with a black background, efficiently hiding the front camera. When you enable Android’s developer settings, the option can be found at Settings under the developer options and subcategory of display cutout.
Mark-Up Screenshots
While capturing a screenshot in your Pixel gadget, you can markup shots using various editing tools in Android 12. In this version, you can able to do more than just rotate, crop, and draw while editing. You can also insert text, emojis, and stickers with the tool. This is not a big change, but it might prevent people from utilizing a third-party app for editing.
PiP (Picture-in-Picture) Enhancements
This feature has been activated from the Oreo version. In terms of use, it is quite restricted. In Android 11, Google sequentially inserts the capacity of resizing the PiP window by holding and dragging the right angle, yet the experience has not been seamless. This has been fixed in Android 12 as it obtains new pinch-to-zoom functionality for PiP.
Easy Accessibility Settings: The accessibility menu has been updated here. Major setting options available on the main menu and least-used options such as font size, display size, color correction are available under the categories such as Text and Display.
Lock Screen: Just like the notification area, The lock screen has a translucent background, and the pattern unlocking action looks lightly bouncier.
Permission Dialog: The permission dialog box has been a little modified in Android 12. For some applications that need accessing the location or microphone, now you will get a shortcut for always permitting access in settings.
Behind the UI Updates…
Enhanced Cookie Management
Android 12 provides support for the SameSite cookie while accessing WebView. The SameSite attribute lets the developers show if a cookie should be limited to a particular website. This addition enhanced cookie management in Android 12 over the OS and various apps. Cookie management in this way is already supported in many prominent android browsers.
AVIF Image Support
Android 12 introduces AVIF image support to give higher image quality with more efficient compression. This format increases the quality of the image for an equal size file compared to the previous image formats such as JPEG. This format uses open-source AV1 compression.
Haptic-feedback to Gaming Controllers
Previously, it was a rumor that Android 12 comes with the game mode, nevertheless, it is not in the first developer preview. But Haptic-feedback to game developers is introduced, it will let the gamers pass on the vibrations to the connected gaming controller or gamepad.
Easier Debugging and Testing of Changes
For the android app developers to test the opt-in changes that can impact their apps, google made many of them toggleable to make it easier. While utilizing the toggles, developers can enable or disable the changes individually, developer options, or ADB.
Android Updates through Google Play
Google is continuing to spend more on Google Play system updates (project mainline) for providing applications a more secure, stable environment across devices. The ART (Android Runtime) module is added which enables push updates to the basic runtime and libraries on devices that run Android 12. Google can increase runtime functionality and accuracy, control the memory more productively and make Kotlin functions agile — all with no need for an entire system update.
Android 12: Get it on your device…
Android 12 comes with various clarifications to its current features rather than just focusing on new features. We’re eager to see Android 12’s development and see which changes stick all the way to the ultimate public constructs. Passionate developers can install it on compatible devices such as Pixel 5, Pixel 4a, Pixel 4a 5G, Pixel 4, Pixel 3, Pixel 3 XL, Pixel 4 XL, Pixel 3a XL, Pixel 3a, and Pixel 4a. We suggest you install it on your alternate device and not the primary one.
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