Google is releasing a developer preview for the following model of Android, Android 12, for Pixel units right this moment. As is the norm for Google, the very first previews of Android are stuffed with numerous developer-facing adjustments. Android 12 has updates to how the OS handles photos, video, and future safety updates.
It’s additionally the norm for Google to carry among the main UI adjustments in reserve for its Google I/O convention, sometimes held in Might. Though this developer preview does embrace some adjustments to the UI for notifications, till we set up it we received’t understand how carefully it is going to map to the leak we noticed earlier this month.
It’s obtainable for Pixel Three and newer telephones however must be manually put in by flashing your system. It’s doubtless nowhere close to prepared for day-to-day use, however Google is promising that it’ll proceed its beta program for normal customers later this 12 months.
Though the purpose of this primary preview is to provide builders a jump-start on getting their apps prepared for the brand new model of Android, there are nonetheless options that ought to make a tangible distinction to customers. Particularly, Android goes to change into more proficient at dealing with various kinds of media.
Google didn’t present photos of Android 12’s person interface forward of time. We are going to replace this submit with extra particulars and pictures as quickly as we’re ready.
New media codecs in Android 12
There can be a brand new transcoding layer that may robotically make the HEVC video format work in apps that don’t natively assist them. At the moment, selecting to shoot in HEVC on an Android cellphone might imply that third-party apps received’t be capable of natively use that video. The brand new transcoding layer for these apps ought to let customers make the change with extra confidence.
Android 12 will assist spatial audio, assist MPEG-H, and be optimized for as much as 24 channels of audio (up from eight earlier than). It’ll additionally make it simpler for builders to tie rumble results to audio.
Google seems to be throwing its weight behind the AV1 Picture File Format — in any other case generally known as AVIF. AVIF is supposed to switch JPGs because the de facto picture format, providing a lot better and cleaner compression with fewer artifacts. Netflix particularly has been an enormous proponent of the format. If AV1 sounds acquainted, that’s as a result of it’s an offshoot of the AV1 video format that main tech firms proposed some years again and each Netflix and Google have partially adopted. AVIF additionally isn’t to be confused with the same HEIF, which Apple’s cameras have been taking pictures for a while.
Google says that it doesn’t intend to make AVIF the default picture format for the digital camera app, so that is nonetheless only a first step.
Sticking with multimedia, Android 12 will merely do a greater job transferring completely different sorts of media between apps. It’s creating a brand new “Wealthy content material insertion” API that may allow you to lower and paste or drag and drop a number of sorts of content material, together with “plain and styled textual content to markup, photos, movies, audio recordsdata, and extra.”
Android 12 interface adjustments
We might want to set up the developer preview ourselves to get a more in-depth take a look at the adjustments Google is introducing proper now. Its weblog submit describes what’s new in considerably normal phrases. It’s a secure wager that what Google is exhibiting right this moment can be a touch to bigger adjustments due later within the 12 months. Whether or not these adjustments actually will match up with the leaked screenshots you see above stays to be seen.
Right here’s how Google describes the adjustments it’s making to notifications:
We’re refreshing notification designs to make them extra trendy, simpler to make use of, and extra practical. On this first preview you’ll discover adjustments from the drawer and controls to the templates themselves. We’re additionally optimizing transitions and animations throughout the system to make them extra clean. As a part of the updates, for apps focusing on Android 12 we’re adorning notifications with customized content material with icon and develop affordances to match all different notifications.
The app icons do line up with the leaked screenshot above, although, once more, that doesn’t essentially imply that’s what the ultimate model will seem like. The “develop affordances” additionally line up — the downward-pointing caret you may see within the screenshot above could be simpler to faucet than the present system. Google additionally notes that it’s asking builders to make use of an API that makes apps open up extra shortly in the correct spot when a person faucets a notification.
Lastly, Google says that it’s altering how Android 12 will behave once you’re in a full-screen app like a video, a Kindle guide, or a online game. At the moment, it usually takes two gestures to exit out of these apps — one to convey up the UI, one other to really exit out. With Android 12, Google says that it’s “altering the default to permit customers to navigate their cellphone with one swipe.”
Modifications below the hood
In 2019, Google began updating sure elements deep contained in the Android OS straight, relatively than ready for carriers to push via a serious replace. Dubbed “Challenge Mainline,” it meant Google might challenge safety updates for vital components of Android utilizing the Google Play infrastructure. Ever since, it’s been including extra items of Android to the Mainline system. Android 12’s massive addition to this method is the Android Runtime (ART), a elementary subsystem for making Android apps run. The aforementioned media transcoder may also change into a Mainline module.
Android 12 can have just a few privateness and safety updates, however they received’t be as prominently seen to customers. The WebView engine that third-party apps use will undertake certainly one of Chrome’s newer cookie settings referred to as “SameSite,” which might assist mitigate some monitoring. Google says that “extra privateness and safety features [will be] coming in later preview releases.”
Android just lately started requiring apps to pop a notification when it must run a background exercise — which seems to be actually distracting. In Android 12, Google says it “can be blocking foreground service begins from the background,” redirecting builders to a brand new API. If certainly one of these background actions can end up in lower than 10 seconds, it might not have to show a notification in any respect.
Google can also be releasing an Android 12 preview for Android TV immediately, together with giving builders the possibility to check their apps on Google’s personal Google TV platform.
What’s subsequent for Android 12
Google is releasing the developer preview right this moment, however once more, it requires that you simply flash your system’s system picture, so actually it’s meant for builders solely proper now. Google says it is going to work on a “Pixel 3 / Three XL, Pixel 3a / 3a XL, Pixel 4 / Four XL, Pixel 4a / 4a 5G, or Pixel 5 system” or builders can merely run it contained in the Android emulator.
There will be a public beta in some unspecified time in the future, however anticipate it to take just a few months. And if Google follows its previous habits, there can be a extra complete take a look at what’s coming in Android 12 in Might (or presumably June).
Final 12 months, Android’s “platform stability” launch got here in early July, however this 12 months Google is focusing on August — the official launch often comes shortly thereafter. That might imply that Android 12 will arrive just a bit later within the 12 months than ordinary.
Within the meantime, we and others can be digging in to the developer preview to see what different particulars we are able to discover. As a rule there are sufficient hints scattered all through the code to provide us a good suggestion of Google’s remaining plans for Android.
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