What’s new in the first Android 12 Developer Preview

The first preview of Android 12 for developers hit the streets on Thursday, and we played with it for a day. There is not much to see in this release – at least not in the beginning. Most of the interesting parts are hidden and the developer community is slowly enabling them. Many changes are incomplete alpha adjustments that will look different in the final version; after all, Google says these releases are for “testing and feedback”.

This first version of Android 12 aims to introduce some APIs and other changes for people to receive feedback, but it was also designed not to reveal much about what the final version of Android 12 will look like. With that in mind, many of the features in a leak previous Android 12 seem to be right. This public version is a clean build with a lot of things disabled, but the more we turn on hidden flags and get hints in the documentation, the more this build looks like a solid midpoint between Android 11 and leaked Android 12 screenshots.

The notification panel

Google can never let an Android release pass without some notification changes, and this year it looks like we’re getting a new design and some other tweaks. Like everything else in visualization, we are only looking at things in half.

There are many color changes. In the shipping preview code, the notification panel chooses a background color with a strong blue tone compared to the pure white of Android 11. The quick-set buttons turned off are now also blue instead of gray. If you turn on dark mode, you’ll see a dark gray notification panel instead of black. It is suspected that all the colors in this building look a little bit different, and the Android 12 leak that we saw earlier suggested fully customizable colors for everything (probably based on the wallpaper). All the color changes we are seeing now may be slightly strange patterns that will change before launch. After all, changing colors should be very easy now.

As for other changes, the application icons on the notification panel are different; they are usually completely white icons within a colored circle. I think they are using the same art as the status bar icons now, which would give a little bit of consistency.

There are new settings for the notification of the persistent media player that was introduced in Android 11. If you dig deeper into the settings, it now appears that you can prevent individual applications from appearing in the persistent media player. There is a section called “Allowed apps” and several checkboxes; they just don’t seem to do anything now.

The ugly black bar at the top of the notification panel has been removed, and the bottom panel is more transparent. We hope that Google will change this before the final launch, because the panel is currently so transparent that it’s easy to confuse the app’s background graphics with the notification panel. Some speculated that we are missing a background blur. A new “RenderEffect” API actually makes it easier to blur the elements.

If you look at Google developer documents, you’ll see a different notification design with more rounded corners, which matches the leak well.

The “Casa Silky” settings

Many of the interesting features of Android 11 are hidden things that we shouldn’t see yet. One of those fun additions is a hidden “Silky Home” flag for the settings, which was found by the Android authority Joe Hindy and XDA’s Mishaal Rahman. The feature flag makes settings work the same as on a Samsung phone, where a large header at the top of each list pushes the top of the list down so that it is easier to reach when using the phone with one hand. We commend this feature when it launched on Samsung phones, and it is also a good feature here. Hopefully, this will become the predominant list style on Android. It is one more thing that aligns with the leak of the previous Android 12.

Much of the launch still looks broken. The main settings page does not have a title that says “Settings”, so instead of a proper title, the Silky Home flag seems to blow up the first piece of text it can grab. In that case, you get a huge “Explore Pixel Tips”, which is usually part of a rotating carousel of configuration suggestions. The actual settings list receives a ton of white space and each entry loses all of its descriptive subtext, making it harder to find the settings.

There are three new sections now. “Applications and notifications” is separated into “Applications” and “Notifications”, and new sections “Styles and wallpapers” and “Security and emergency” appear. Styles and wallpapers just activate the existing settings of the home screen, where you can choose wallpapers, icon shapes and the layout of the icon grid. Many users probably have trouble finding this page using the normal method – long press on a blank area of ​​the home screen – so this seems like a good idea. The “Security and Emergency” section, which is also available without the Silky Home banner, appears to be just Pixel’s Personal Security app.

The order of the configuration list is rearranged and it appears that the list is being divided into logical sections with white space. It really looks like the sections should have titles like in previous Android versions. Network and connected devices look like the “connectivity” section. Apps, notifications and digital well-being are all related to apps. The group with battery, sound and display storage looks like the “Hardware” section etc.

Accessibility

Here’s the one-handed mode of Android 12 – fully functional. Unfortunately, it’s like Apple’s Reachability (vertical downsizing) instead of OHM in most OEM software (horizontal and vertical downsizing). pic.twitter.com/IznRVHTgPu

– Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) February 18, 2021

It is not just the settings that prioritize accessibility. Rahman also found a hidden hand mode that seems to work the same way as it did on iOS. Once this feature is activated, a slide down in the gesture area will lower the top of the screen, allowing you to better reach the controls.

Rahman also found another secret feature that turns a slide-down gesture into a system-wide way to open the notification panel, another feature that prevents users from reaching the top of the screen. At the moment, it looks like you’ll need to choose easy notification opening or one-handed mode, as both features use the same gesture.

That’s basically it for the main changes. It seems that Google is trying to save most of the important things in whatever form Google I / O takes later this year. As usual, there is an officially published timeline promising releases every month from here until at least August.