Google is ready to launch its next major version of Android – Android 12 – later this year, after a series of previews and beta for developers that are likely to start rolling out later this month. Before the stable launch, Google shares the documentation and source code with its main partners to give them time to prepare for the launch. Today, an alleged draft of a document that Google made to summarize the changes in Android 12 was leaked online, and screenshots showing the new UI and functional changes were taken from the document. Although we cannot fully confirm the authenticity of these images, we have seen evidence that the document in question is, in fact, real and, furthermore, these images actually came from that document. With that in mind, here’s what we’re seeing now.
One of the alleged screenshots of Android 12 shows a new UI of the notification panel. The transparency is gone and has been replaced by an opaque light beige background, although the color probably depends on the current theme and / or whether Dark Mode is enabled or not. The separation between the “conversations” section and the rest of the notifications is still there, and the rounded corners of each notification are now more pronounced. The number of quick setting blocks that are shown when the notification panel is partially expanded has been reduced from 6 to 4, making each icon larger. The date and clock positions have been changed, but there are also new privacy indicators in the upper right corner.
Speaking of which, it looks like Google may add new privacy features to Android 12. In the new version of Android, you may receive a warning in the form of status bar indicators whenever an application is using the camera or microphone. Touching the status bar icons may show a pop-up at the top of the screen that tells you exactly which applications are using the camera or microphone. Google has been testing these privacy chips for over 2 years, so it would be nice to see them finally appear on Android 12.
Related to this change is a supposed renewal of the “Privacy” settings in Android 12. The new Privacy settings may contain buttons to disable the camera and silence the microphone completely, in addition to switching access to the location. You can now disable all sensors on your device using the “sensors off” quick setting block, but this block can only be shown after enabling Developer Options. Android 12 can make these sensor selectors more accessible to the user by placing them in privacy settings.
Finally, we have what appears to be a new addition to the Android widget selection. When Apple recently added widgets to iOS, we argued that they are better than Android’s implementation in some ways. Although we don’t know if Google is planning a major overhaul of the widgets, it looks like they at least plan to make some changes. In some screenshots, we can see a supposed new “Conversations” widget on Android 12 that can highlight recent messages, missed calls or activity status. The widget shown is small and appears to be large enough to accommodate the display of one message / call / status at a time in its smallest size.
According to a screenshot of the document we viewed, Google plans to force the inclusion of camera and microphone indicators on Android 12. These indicators should be shown prominently at the top of the screen, always visible whenever the camera or microphone is being accessed and must have the same color throughout the ecosystem. We don’t know what other changes will be required until we have the full Compatibility Definition Document (CDD) for Android 12.
Again, as we have not received the full document in question, we cannot verify 100% the authenticity of these images. However, the screenshot we received from the document comes from a trusted source who recently shared other confidential documents with us. If we receive more evidence to support these alleged Android 12 screenshots, we will follow up on a separate post. We also asked Google to comment on this leak and will update this article if we receive a response.
If you’re interested in finding out more about what’s coming in the next big Android release, check out our Android 12 tag. We hope there’s a better theme system, decoupled emojis, an app hibernation feature and many other features that are need to be discovered. When Google unveils its first Developer Preview in the next few weeks, don’t expect to see all of these changes appear. This is because the builds that Google releases before its I / O developer conference tend to miss many of the most interesting user-facing features.
Thanks to XDA Senior Member RKBD for drawing our attention to these images, and thanks to our informant (who wants to remain anonymous) for his help in corroborating these images!