Since 2014 this is the biggest visual update Android has made in a long time.
Android 12 is named Material You after the design language used to create it. This basically means you have more control of how your phone looks like. Let’s look at these amazing new features

What’s new on Android 12?

Lock screen

You will notice the new changes straight from the lock screen. You will notice the new notification layout. The notification bubble is rounded at the corners. When all the notifications are cleared the clock drops down to the middle and fills up the display

Home screen display

Material You has new animations to make it feel snappier and smoother. When you pick up the device it lights up from the bottom to the top, when woken up with the power button it lights up from the right(power button side) to the left. You will also notice the new colors when typing the password. This feature is called color extraction which we are going to talk about in a minute. Unlocking the device you well straight away notice the new widgets and they also spiced up things by having new icons, finally!

Notification shade & Quick Settings

On your home screen swiping down the notification shade, you will straight away see the big changes. We have big notification icons that have taken up space they are also colored by the theme color of the wallpaper. They have named this feature color extraction. The quick settings menu has also introduced Google Pay, My Home. The camera and microphone toggle permission icons have also been added which will talk about in detail. We also have another important feature added, the notification history shortcut. If you accidentally swipe away important notifications from your shade you can quickly access them from the notification history. Now no let’s look at color extraction.

Color extraction

This is the feature that has made android 12 beautiful and intuitive. The customization is extensive and deep. Android 12 lets you customize almost everything and make it yours (Material You)
The color extraction feature basically extracts primary colors and complementary colors from your wallpaper, the colors are used in your notification panel settings menu, calculator, user interface elements like the volume slider, widgets, and a lot more. App developers can also hook into the API to allow their apps to recognize all or some of the colors.

Gestures

Starting with one-handed mode, Google has added “swipe down” for easier handling with one hand. This feature has been in the Samsung Galaxy already. We also have to double-tap the fingerprint sensor to launch apps or do several other things
For the power button, we have a long-press gesture to wake up Google Assistant, this however works only after turning it on in settings.

Performance

The performance of devices running on android 12 is faster, this is due to the reduced time needed for core systems services by up to 22%. Devices will be faster and more responsive. Device efficiency was also increased by reducing the use of big cores by the system server by 15%. This allows devices to run for long hours before needing a charge. They also have improved transition and app start-up times by reducing lock contention and latency variability.

Privacy

Android 12 gives you more control over what private information you allowing apps to access. There is a new Privacy Dashboard that gives you a one-time view into your permission settings and what data is being accessed, how often, and by which apps. It also gives you the capability to revoke app permissions with just one click. Privacy indicators have also been added to the status bar. You will be seeing a camera or mic indicator or both whenever apps access these two. Due to this, we have two new icon shortcuts in the quick settings menu, the microphone, and camera. These two toggles turn of the access of the camera and the microphone from the entire system. In which case the camera is black when you open it.

In matters of location, there is an option to either choose an approximate location or a precise location. This is because some apps only need approximate location and not the precise location for example weather apps.

Private Compute Core

This is a privacy tool that enables features like live captioning, now playing, and smart reply. Now all the audio and language processing happens on your device isolated from the network.

Other Features

Animations

From using a shadow to show the end of a list of things, we have a stretch animation to show you have reached the end of your scrolling.

WiFi sharing

WiFi sharing just got easier and apart from QR code, we have an inbuilt nearby share feature to air space drop them to another compatible android device. To do it, open Settings, a user needs to go to Wi-Fi, select the network one wants, and tap ‘Share’. One will get the option to share the network via a QR code or through Nearby Share. If a user chooses the latter, the phone will look for nearby devices, and the person on the other device will get a notification, asking them to accept the share. The password will not be displayed for security reasons, but should the receiver accept the share, they will then be able to connect to the Wi-Fi network.

FPS Indicator

In the do not disturb mode you can turn on FPS Indicator when gaming. This is available in the do not disturb scheduler. Another dope feature for gamers is actually the ability to screen record and live stream to YouTube

Image processing

The camera department also got some upgrades specifically when it comes to displaying skin tones. For portrait mode, they have created a better depth map, showing more real edges that blurring the edges of the subject.

Digital lock key

Google has already partnered with a few brands, specifically BMW where you use an android phone as a key to lock unlock and start your car. It uses NFC and ultra-wideband technology to keep your car secure and easy to use. You can also share your digital key with your friends.

Updates

Google has also extended the scope of project mainline in Android 12 to support Android Runtime (ART) updates via Google Play. To help partnered device makers to keep their devices up-to-date. lower-level system security update escaping mobile providers to go give updates and ensuring the devices are always up to date.

Conclusion

A quick way to try the Android 12 Beta version is to enroll your device in the Android Beta for Pixel program if using a pixel phone or your own smartphone manufacturer beta program. Once enrolled, your device will receive regular over-the-air (OTA) updates to the latest Android 12 builds through (and including) the final release. Enrolling is a simple and fast process. In most cases, you don’t need to do a full reset of your data to move to Android 12 Beta, but it’s recommended that you back up data before enrolling your device. It is highly recommended for developers and software programmers Android 12 Beta is available for Pixel 5, Pixel 4a, Pixel 4a (5G), Pixel 4, Pixel 3a, Pixel 3a XL, Pixel 3, and Pixel 3 XL devices. Find the list of smartphone brands eligible for Android 12 here