Android 12

With the December 2020 Feature Drop, Google made it so that your Pixel phone charges slowly at night to preserve battery health. Pixel users have had hit or miss experiences with Adaptive Charging, and Google now looks to have tweaked how it works on Android 12.

With this week’s release, Google is “moving into the final phase” of Android 12 and focusing on “polish, performance, and stability” rather than adding new features. However, a bug in Android 12 Beta 4 sees most notification banners not pop up.

Android 12 Beta 4 has added a fair volume of new features and functions, but the lockscreen has seen a trio of tweaks that include the brand new Google Sans Text for the Now Playing feature, plus some improved icons for other existing features.

Besides wallpapers, Google lets owners customize the Pixel experience by making available a large collection of ringtones, notifications, and alarm sounds. Android 12 Beta 3 introduces a trio of additions to the Sounds app, and they’re very likely the new/next Pixel defaults.

We are potentially just a month or so away from the actual full stable Android 12 release, and that means that the public-facing preview phase is not far off done. Android 12 Beta 4 has arrived some four weeks after the third, and following all of our previous deep dives, we’ve been spending time with it to find the best new features and changes that you can enjoy right now.

The multitasking menu in Android 12 has been tweaked over the Beta period, but the layout is mostly unchanged. Google, however, has put a lot of work into making it easier to share content from Recents, and Android 12 Beta 4 adds image support.

With the release of the Android 12 Beta 4 build, new features are pretty thin on the ground, but the long-awaited Game Dashboard is now far easier to launch, with the in-game quick toggle also making an appearance.

Every year, Google includes an easter egg in the latest Android release, and Android 12 is no different. With the release of Android 12 Beta 4, this year’s easter egg is live, serving to showcase Material You and its dynamic colors.

The visual theme of Android 12 is by far the biggest change to the platform, and in Beta 4, Google is still making tweaks to how Material You is implemented. In this latest release, more themed icons have been added, and the Google Search logo on the Pixel Launcher gets a delightful Material You makeover.

With the Platform Stability milestone in today’s release, Android 12 nears a public launch. Over the coming hours, we will dive into Android 12 Beta 4 to chronicle all the new features.

This year’s Android preview cycle sees two additional releases before wider consumer availability with the public launch. Android 12 Beta 4 is rolling out today for Pixel phones with “Platform Stability.” 

Android 12 brings with it a big overhaul to notifications and Quick Settings. Many parts of the redesign launched with Android 12 Beta 1, but Google is now rolling out an “Ongoing call” chip for the Phone app.

With Beta 3 earlier this week, Google’s upcoming design language is appearing in more places throughout the OS. Some Android 12 users are now seeing the Gboard Material You redesign live.

We’re a little over a month away from the formal release of Android 12 on Google’s own devices, but apparently that’s not slowing Samsung down too much. Overnight, the company briefly revealed that some Samsung Galaxy S21 devices would be eligible for an Android 12 Beta way ahead of schedule.

The next version of Google’s mobile OS just saw its latest patch today and is scheduled for one more beta before the release candidate and consumer launch. One of those releases will see the Android 12 Easter egg, but here’s a preview of it right now.

Almost two weeks after the last major release in the preview program, Android 12 Beta 3.1 is rolling out with key bug fixes on Pixel phones.

Android has always been famous for its customization options, but in Android 10 Google pushed that a step further with the ability to easily adjust system accent colors and fonts. In Android 12, though, it seems the ability to swap fonts and icons is being removed in favor of Material You.

Android 12 is the biggest update visually to the platform that we’ve seen in years, and alongside bigger overhauls like Material You, there are also a bunch of new animations. One new animation that’s not immediately obvious, though, is an updated charging animation when your Pixel phone is powered off.

Android 12 Beta 3 signifies a milestone as the stable OS builds inch ever closer to a full launch later this year. We’ve already done a deeper dive into the “top” new features and functions, but we’ve unpacked a few more that you might have missed but should definitely still know.