Ahead of the 2021 Google for Games Dev Summit next month, the company shared the two-day agenda split across four tracks. Besides Android 12, Play, Ads, Firebase, Chrome, YouTube, and Cloud news, Google will be talking about developing for Stadia.
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Android 12 this fall will introduce support for digital car keys. With our phones growing ever more capable, losing them will become a greater and greater inconvenience. As such, the Find My Device process will incorporate deleting and suspending car keys if you misplace your phone.
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Gesture navigation in Android works a lot like it does on iOS, and in turn, there’s a constant navigation bar at the bottom of the display to signal that you can use gestures. On iOS, the gesture bar disappears when you’re on the homescreen. On Android, though, the gesture bar remains in place on the homescreen, including the Pixel Launcher, and Google says that won’t change anytime soon.
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Android 12 Beta 2 rolled out this week with a ton of changes, and Google is now asking users to participate in a feedback survey.
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One of the “flagship” features of Android 12 is widgets, and the start of that is the neat “Conversations” widget that lets you jump into a message thread from the homescreen. In Android 12 Beta 2, that Conversations widget is finally live for more people, too.
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While powerful, picture-in-picture is not implemented in the most user-friendly manner, Android 12 Beta 2 takes a crack at simplifying that experience by getting rid of resizing through corner dragging.
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We first reported over a year ago that Google was working on a new gesture for Pixel phones that allowed a quick double-tap on the back of the phone to perform a customizable action. Now, finally in the second beta release of Android 12, Google has released the “Quick Tap” feature previously known as “Columbus,” but it’s only available on the Pixel 5.
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Continuing with the theme of animations and colors, Google has added a neat little animation in Android 12 for Pixel 4 owners that highlights the face unlock sensor when it’s used.
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With Android 12 Beta 2, the Google Assistant has learned how to open the power menu on your phone, in return for taking over the power button.
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Android 12 puts a lot of emphasis on animations and colors, and with its second beta release, we can see both of those are in use, as Google has introduced new animations when charging on Pixel phones.
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Android 12 Beta 2 has tweaked the media controls design, giving it a streamlined design that takes up less space on screen vertically and uses Material You colors.
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As the company faces increased scrutiny over privacy in the wake of what Apple is doing over on iOS, Android 12 puts quite a bit of effort into improving privacy tools and practices. With the arrival of Android 12 Beta 2, the added privacy tools have officially arrived.
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Android 12 Beta 2 has brought about what feels like a ton of changes, but one that might prove to be the most useful for those with spotty Wi-Fi networks is the ability to quickly reset all connection settings with a single button press.
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Google is making it even easier to make NFC or contactless payments with Android 12 Beta 1 by adding a neat Wallet toggle to your lock screen.
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One of the many aspects of Android being revamped with Android 12 is the Quick Settings area. With Android 12 Beta 2, the Quick Settings area gains quick access to Google Pay, Google Home shortcuts, as well as a power button.
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Android 12 goes big on UI elements quite literally, with oversized elements for quick settings and more. In Beta 2, though, Android 12 is downsizing the volume slider so it’s not as comically massive.
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The first Beta at I/O 2021 last month rolled out the first aspects of the Material You redesign and Google is continuing to overhaul the next major version of its OS with the latest release. Over the coming hours, we will dive into Android 12 Beta 2 to chronicle all the new features and changes.
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After introducing a totally new idea for the power menu in Android 11, Google is backtracking and replacing the design with something more similar to what the likes of Samsung and others have been using for years in Android 12.
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The date and weather widget on Pixel devices is subtly bolder than it used to be. You can see this extremely minor change in the images below — on the left is Android 12 Beta 1 while the right is Android 12 Beta 2.
(This is only the latest entry in the saga. Be sure to check out the last time Google made this change and the time before that.)
Google’s design for Android 12 is the biggest refresh in years, but the “Material You” aspects that change colors based on your wallpaper weren’t live in the first release. Now, they’re live in Beta 2.
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Following Android 12 entering wider availability last month, Beta 2 is rolling out today to Pixel phones. This is the first of two incremental Beta-quality releases as the next release of Android nears its public launch.
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With the first beta at I/O, many of the consumer-facing changes in the next major version of Google’s mobile OS were revealed. One of the most controversial visual updates in Android 12 is the ripple effect when tapping. The company has heard the feedback and committed to improving it over the coming releases.
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OnePlus was among the small group of Android partners making Android 12 available early with both the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro devices getting beta builds, but the first release caused issues on some devices. Now, an updated version is being made available.
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With the launch of Android 12 Beta 1 at I/O 2021 last week, Google made the next version of its OS more widely available through OTA installs. The company is now running an Android 12 Beta survey that asks you to identify any issues you’ve found and for thoughts on the key visual changes.
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