Android 12 features – Latest Google’s OS

Android 12 is the latest release of Google’s mobile operating system, and it is seamlessly integrated with Google’s app ecosystem. That means, out of the box, Android pairs perfectly with the likes of Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Photos and just about any of the apps offered within Google Workspaces, for business users.

Android 12 shows that mobile software has come a long way since its inception. What once started off as an upstart to challenge Apple’s iOS in the dawn of the modern smartphone, Android has since grown into its own. Lately, Google has abandoned the public dessert codenames — to the chagrin of many, myself included — and focused on making Android a more mature operating system. That’s very much in evidence in Android 12.

Android 12 is the mobile OS’s biggest update in 2021, and there are plenty of hidden features that you should know about. Sure, it brings a new adaptive design language that refreshes the software’s look down to the last pixel. And everything from the buttons to the sliders has a delightfully fresh appearance with bolder visuals and smoother animations. 

Android 12 also ships with some new features. There are no knockout punches, but most of the new features added some quality of life improvements that we appreciate nonetheless. Here is a quick roundup of those Android 12 features.

1. Lock Screen Clock the first thing you’ll likely notice the first time you power up a phone running Android 12 is the new lock screen clock. With your phone clear of notifications a large digital clock takes up pride of place right in the center of the screen.
2. PIN code keys when you swipe to unlock the phone you’ll notice a fresh design for the PIN code keypad. The ‘buttons’ are round, large and minimal with pastel shades. These shades are governed by Material You.
3. Notifications have undergone something of a design overhaul too. The style of notification windows has changed, and they’re automatically grouped per app, or separated out if they’re not conversational. Also, there’s an easy new snooze control that you simply tap to snooze, rather than having to swipe on the notification. Then you can snooze specific notifications for a set amount of time.  
4. Quick Settings tiles received a rather large overhaul as well. The smaller toggles are gone, replaced by larger, rounded rectangle buttons. These new tiles work like previous toggles where you tap to turn them on and off. There are also new tiles for camera and microphone access (more on that later), Google Pay, alerts, and smart home stuff. A few of the tiles work differently. For instance, the Internet tile always opens a prompt now and houses both mobile and Wi-Fi data information. By and large, it is just an aesthetic change. On the plus side, the larger tiles are much easier to read and house more information. Of course, that comes at the cost of space. Users who use toggles heavily will no doubt need multiple pages.
5. Enhanced screenshots take a screenshot and if the page is longer than you’ve captured, there’s the option to capture more. Yes, scroll capture is in Android 12. Head to the edit/markup function and you can now type text on to your screenshots in a number of different font colors. Plus you can stick some emojis on there if you want by pressing the little sticker icon. You can resize them easily too by just pinching to zoom. As a side note to that, you can now easily dismiss screenshot thumbnails by swiping them off the screen. Simple. 
6. Microphone and camera indicators Android 12 also includes indicators for camera and microphone use. Basically, a little microphone or camera indicator appears in the top right corner of your phone screen whenever an app accesses one of those things. A green dot persists after the initial indicator goes away to let you know that an app is still using it. It’s a quick and easy way to tell the user when the microphone or camera is active. For added security, you can disable both the camera and microphone. Google added new toggles in the Quick Settings specifically for this purpose. You simply toggle one of them off to completely disable the camera or microphone. We tested it with the camera app and there is even a prompt that shows up if the camera permission is turned off.
7. Approximate location Google added the approximate location permission to Android 12. The approximate location permission gives apps a general idea of where you are, but not a definite location. It helps hide the user’s exact location from apps that don’t really need it. You should be able to choose which permission you want in any app that asks for location. An example of where this is useful is a weather app. Weather apps don’t need your exact street address to show you the local weather. It doesn’t matter if you’re at home or at the local grocery store, the weather forecast is the same. There are many other examples, but the approximate location will dramatically reduce the number of apps that know where you are.
8. Privacy dashboard One of the major new official changes is the Privacy Dashboard. It’ll give you easy access to see what apps have accessed certain permissions. Whether that be your camera and mic or location. What’s more, when you first launch an app and it wants access to your location you can decide to have it only get access to an approximate location rather than precise. Android 12 has also added quick on/off toggles in the quick shade menu that disable the mic, location and camera so that nothing can access them. When the camera or mic is in use, a little green dot will appear at the top right of the screen. If you swipe down, you can see a full icon and tapping on that will tell you which app is capturing images or sound.
9. Customisation and theming Theming is a major part of the Android 12’s new feature list. In the customisation window you can choose to have the colors of your wallpaper determine the accent and background colors of the entire phone. It also allows you to toggle on a “themed icons” feature which transforms your app icons to color-matched ones as well – although this mostly only seems to work with Google apps. The system lets you choose a wallpaper and then take theme colors from the wallpaper or you can choose a “basic” complimentary colour instead. You’ll then find these themed colors beyond the home screen – it will be picked up in design elements across the phone, with some apps, like the calculator or dialler getting a color makeover to fit the theme.
10. Media Player interface One of the more prominent UI changes is the updated media control widget that appears in the drop-down menu you when you have music playing. Google has enlarged it, making it span almost the entire width of the screen and adjusted the layout so the controls are closer to the middle of the screen. It also takes up more space on the Lock Screen when active.  Now, if you’re playing the music on your phone locally, you can tap the tiny little icon in the corner of the widget and this brings up a new playback location popup window. Here you can adjust the music volume or quickly pair a new device like a pair of earbuds of a Bluetooth speaker.
11. Nearby Share for Wifi passwords This is a potentially handy feature that lets you quickly share your WiFi network details with people in the same room as you. So while you could share your Wi-Fi using a QR code scanner before, if you look beneath that in Android 12 you now get the option that says ‘Nearby’. Tap on it, turn on Nearby sharing and then it’ll look for devices near you to share the details with. 
12. Game Dashboard Android 12 feature for now, Game Dashboard aims to improve your gaming experience by overlaying some important tools and information, like the ability to record your gameplay, streaming your gaming session on YouTube, or displaying a live FPS counter so that you can get an idea of how your phone is performing. You can also select from one of the three different gaming profiles — Performance, Standard, and Battery Saver — depending on your requirements. However, this particular feature will only work with games that have been updated to take advantage of the new APIs in Android 12.
13. One-handed mode Taking a cue from third-party Android skins, Google has added a native one-handed mode in Android 12. As the name indicates, the feature makes it easy to use your phone with one hand — a boon for devices with large displays and gargantuan size. On your device, head over to Settings > System> Gestures. Tap on One-Handed mode and enable the toggle. Now, you can enable one-handed mode by simply swiping down from the bottom edge of the display. Do note that this feature only works when you are using gesture navigation on your device.
14. Quick Tap Taking a cue from the Back Tap gesture in iOS 14, Google has introduced a new Quick Tap feature in Android 12. With a simple double-tap on the back of your phone, you can launch an app of your choice, control media playback, take a screenshot, show recent apps, and trigger Google Assistant. The Quick Tap gesture is tucked under Settings > System > Gestures in Android 12. Now, depending on your preference, select an action that you want to assign to Quick Tap.
15. Clipboard Access Alerts Google has added a toast notification to notify you whenever an app accesses your clipboard. This feature is live with Android 12 beta 2, and developers are expected to minimize app reads from the clipboard. Apps should access the clipboard only when necessary.

Personal

• Android 12 rethinks the entire user interface, from shapes, light and motion, to customizable system colors that can be adapted to match you.
• An all-new conversation widget puts the conversations with the people you care about front-and-center on your home screen so you never miss a chat from your loved ones.
• The UI feels alive with every tap, swipe and scroll – responding quickly and expressively with smooth motion and animations.

Private

• Privacy Dashboard lets you see what apps accessed your location, camera, or mic and manage their permissions.
• Indicators let you know when an app is using your microphone or camera .
• Approximate location permissions lets apps see just your approximate location instead of a precise one.

Performance

• Scrolling screenshot with Android 12 allows you to capture all the content on the page in one image.
• Transfer all your essentials easier than ever by connecting your old phone to your new Android with a cable or shared WiFi connection.
• Take advantage of play as you download, so you can jump straight into gameplay without needing to wait for the full download to finish.

Android 12 offers improved gaming API optimization, It makes icons large for one-handed use, It supports next-level animation fluidity, It supports Redesigning all UI elements, It offers better customization features, It presents improve privacy and security features

1. Redesigned all UI elements.
2. Better customization features.
3. Improve privacy and security features.
4. Improved gaming API optimization.
5. Make icons large for one-handed use.
6. Next level animation fluidity.

Introduction

Samsung has the tradition of launching a major new version of One UI that accompanies each year’s newest Android release. Before that, however, the company releases a couple of minor One UI upgrades along with each of its flagship smartphone launches.

In 2022, the Galaxy S22 series brought with it One UI 4.1, and in the second half of the year, Samsung is expected to release One UI 4.1.1 with its new foldables, the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and Galaxy Z Fold 4. One UI 4.1.1 is likely to be exclusive to the company’s foldables, including the ones that launched in 2021 and before.

One UI 4.1.1 features

At this time, there’s no word on what new features One UI 4.1.1 will bring. However, there’s a good chance all the new functionality will be targeted at Samsung’s foldables to help users take better advantage of the foldable form factor.

There could also be some minor features that are compatible with all Galaxy phones and tablets, although like we saw last year with One UI 3.1.1, Samsung will probably bring these features to non-foldable devices without bumping up the One UI version number on them.

One UI 4.1.1 release

One UI 4.1.1 will debut with the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 4 later in the second half of 2022, as mentioned earlier, and it will then be released to other compatible foldables and non-foldable Galaxy devices in the weeks that follow.

However, with One UI 5.0 coming soon after with the Android 13 update, most Galaxy devices will likely make the jump directly to version 5.0 instead of 4.1.1. More details should follow soon as we move closer to the launch of the new foldables.