Google says Android TV 12 will start showing up on TVs ‘later’ this year, instead of ‘early’ 2022 [U]

Ben Schoon | Mar 24 2022 - 10:42 am PT

Android 12 is one of the platform’s most meaningful updates for the big screen in a while, but despite its early start, it hasn’t shown up on any devices. In a new blog post published this week, Google has confirmed that Android TV 12 will be available on devices this year.

Update: Google has updated the blog post to say that Android TV 12 won’t debut until “later” this year, retracting the earlier mention of “early.”

A blog post published to Medium by Google’s Paul Lammertsma recaps what’s new in Android TV 12 including 4K UI rendering, text scaling, and refresh rate switching as well. We covered most of these new additions last year in earlier developer previews. Towards the end of the post, though, he also reveals two new bits of information.

Firstly, the platform’s dedicated developer device, the ADT-3, can now download Android 12 via an OTA instead of manually flashing the update.*

Secondly, and more excitingly, is that Android TV 12 is on its way to a formal release. While no specifics are mentioned, Google says that Android TV 12 will “being appearing” on TVs “early this year.”

Android 12 will begin appearing on TVs early this year, so now is the time to begin evaluating your app for compatibility.

Update 3/24: Google has retracted the previous mention of this update arriving on Android TV and Google TV devices “early” this year, and has since updated the post to say “later” in 2022.

Android 12 will begin appearing on TVs later this year, so now is the time to begin evaluating your app for compatibility.
Editor’s note: a previous version of this story stated that Android 12 would begin appearing on TVs early this year.

Our original coverage follows.

While March 2022 is pushing it on “early” in the year, the phrasing here certainly points towards Android 12 showing up on some new models or via updates in the near future. An easy guess would be on new Sony Bravia or Hisense models. Sony usually launches its new batch of Google TV-powered televisions around late March — last year’s models went on sale around March 30. There’s no sign on if this update will be made available for Chromecast with Google TV.

More on Android TV:

*This article was updated to correct that the OTA rolling out is for the final release of Android 12, now the developer preview as previously stated.

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