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Google is releasing a developer examination for the abutting version of Android, Android 12, for Pixel facilities today. As is the norm for Google, the very first previews of Android are impregnated of a lot of developer-facing changes. Android 12 has updates to how the OS handles images, video, as well as imminent security updates.

It's additionally the norm for Google to hold some of the major UI changes in assets for its Google I/O conference, about wrapped in May. Although this developer examination does include some changes to the UI for notifications, until we install it we won't know how closely it will map to the outlet we saw beforehand this month.

It's available for Pixel 3 as well as newer phones however needs to be manually installed by gleaming your device. It's likely undistinguished near ready for quotidian use, however Google is proper that it will protract its beta program for regular users later this year.

Although the point of this first examination is to give developers a jump-start on getting their apps ready for the new version of Android, there are still individualism that should steamroller a undeniable difference to users. Specifically, Android is kickup to wilt increasingly especial at leadership mismatched types of media.

Google did not reconcile images of Android 12's user interface antecedently of time. We will amend this post with increasingly details as well as images as unhesitatingly as we are able.

New media formats in Android 12

There will be a new transcoding layer that will automatically steamroller the HEVC video format work in apps that don't natively tangency them. Currently, dividend to shoot in HEVC on an Android sighing may beggarly that third-party apps won't be sturdy to natively use that video. The new transcoding layer for those apps should let users steamroller the switch with increasingly confidence.

Android 12 will tangency spatial audio, tangency MPEG-H, as well as be optimized for up to 24 channels of audio (up from eight before). It will additionally steamroller it easier for developers to tie rumble effects to audio.

Google appears to be throwing its weight breech the AV1 Patron File Format -- otherwise legit as AVIF. AVIF is meant to seesaw JPGs as the de facto patron format, offering pregnant biggest as well as cleaner pinch with shortened artifacts. Netflix in particular has been a big seconder of the format. If AV1 sounds familiar, that's considering of the fact that it's an offshoot of the AV1 video format that major tech companies proposed some years back as well as both Netflix as well as Google have partially adopted. AVIF additionally isn't to be cowed with the agnate HEIF, which Apple's cameras have been shooting for some time.

Google says that it does not intend to steamroller AVIF the default patron format for the camera app, so this is still neutral a first step.

Sticking with multimedia, Android 12 will artlessly do a biggest job moving mismatched kinds of media between apps. It's creating a new "Rich content insertion" API that will let you cut as well as paste or shuffle as well as fossil multiplied kinds of content, including "plain as well as styled text to markup, images, videos, audio files, as well as more."

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A leaked squinch at Android 12. As of advertisement we don't know precisely how bureaucratic this is, however it lines up with Google's simplification in its blog post.

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Android 12 interface changes

We will need to install the developer examination ourselves to get a closer squinch at the changes Google is introducing right now. Its blog post describes what's new in somewhat general terms. It's a unscarred bet that what Google is simulating today will be a imagery to sempiternity changes due later in the year. Whether those changes reservedly will match up with the leaked screenshots you see above soot to be seen.

Here's how Google describes the changes it is managerial to notifications:

We're auspicious notification designs to steamroller them increasingly modern, easier to use, as well as increasingly functional. In this first examination you'll premonition changes from the drawer as well as controls to the templates themselves. We're additionally optimizing transitions as well as animations lengthiness the tessellation to steamroller them increasingly smooth. As partage of the updates, for apps targeting Android 12 we're decorating notifications with custom content with figure as well as expand affordances to match all other notifications.

The app icons do line up with the leaked screenshot above, though, again, that doesn't necessarily beggarly that's what the final version will squinch like. The "expand affordances" additionally line up -- the downward-pointing caret you can see in the screenshot raised would be easier to tap than the current system. Google additionally notes that it is asking developers to use an API that makes apps operative up increasingly selvage in the right atom back a user taps a notification.

Finally, Google says that it is changing how Android 12 will behave back you're in a full-screen app like a video, a Kindle book, or a video game. Currently, it often takes two gestures to route out of those apps -- one to coincide up the UI, liberty to conclusively route out. With Android 12, Google says that it is "changing the default to fertilize users to navigate their sighing with one swipe."

Changes under the hood

In 2019, Google started updating cocksure gears downreaching inside the Android OS directly, rather than waiting for carriers to push through a major update. Dubbed "Project Mainline," it meant Google could issue security updates for curious privates of Android utilizing the Google Spectacle infrastructure. Someday since, it's been estimating increasingly pieces of Android to the Mainline system. Android 12's big appendix to this tessellation is the Android Runtime (ART), a fundamental subsystem for managerial Android apps run. The aforementioned media transcoder will additionally wilt a Mainline module.

Android 12 will have a few privacy as well as security updates, however they won't be as prominently visible to users. The WebView engine that third-party apps use will corroborate one of Chrome's increasingly recent cookie settings chosen "SameSite," which could help mitigate some tracking. Google says that "more privacy as well as security individualism [will be] contentious in later examination releases."

Android reiteratively began resultful apps to pop a notification back it needs to run a preliminaries avocation -- which turns out to be reservedly distracting. In Android 12, Google says it "will be blocking foreground service starts from the background," redirecting developers to a new API. If one of these preliminaries activities can forging up in shortened than 10 seconds, it may not need to brandish a notification at all.

Google is additionally releasing an Android 12 examination for Android TV right away, including giving developers the endangerment to test their apps on Google's own Google TV platform.

What's abutting for Android 12

Google is releasing the developer examination today, however again, it requires that you shine your device's tessellation image, so reservedly it's meant for developers pigeonholed right now. Google says it will work on a "Pixel 3 / 3 XL, Pixel 3a / 3a XL, Pixel 4 / 4 XL, Pixel 4a / 4a 5G, or Pixel 5 device" or developers can artlessly run it inside the Android emulator.

There will be a purchasable beta at some point, however expect it to take a few months. As well as if Google follows its past habits, there will be a increasingly conclusive squinch at what's contentious in Android 12 in May (or possibly June).

Last year, Android's "platform stability" releasing came in early July, however this year Google is targeting Liturgical -- the official releasing usually comes shortly thereafter. That could beggarly that Android 12 will rustle neutral a little later in the year than usual.

In the meantime, we as well as others will be digging in to the developer examination to see what other details we can find. Increasingly often than not there are enough hints troll throughout the code to give us a good idea of Google's final plans for Android.

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