Android 12 Features: So far So Good

Android 12 Features, The twelfth major release and 19th version of Android, the mobile operating system, So far So Good and having the most advanced features added in this version.

Game Mode

The Game Mode API and Game Mode interventions allow you to optimize gameplay by prioritizing characteristics, such as performance or battery life based on users’ settings or game-specific configurations.

AppSearch

Android 12 introduces AppSearch, a high-performance on-device search engine, as a system service. AppSearch allows applications to index structured data and search over it with built-in full-text search capabilities.

Widgets improvements

Android 12 revamps the existing Widgets API to improve the user and developer experience in the platform and launchers.

Audio-coupled haptic effect

Android 12 apps can generate haptic feedback derived from an audio session using the phone’s vibrator. This provides an opportunity for more immersive game and audio experiences.

Splash screen

Android 12 introduces a new app launch animation for all apps that includes an into-app motion from the point of launch, a splash screen showing the app icon, and a transition to the app itself.

Ranking importance of incoming calls

Android 12 adds the new notification style Notification.CallStyle for phone calls. Using this template lets your app indicate the importance of active calls by displaying a prominent chip that shows the time of the call in the status bar; the user can tap this chip to return to their call.

Enriched image support for notifications

In Android 12, you can now enrich your app’s notification experience by providing animated images in MessagingStyle() and BigPictureStyle() notifications. Also, your app can now enable users to send image messages when they reply to messages from the notification shade.

Rounded corner

Android 12 introduces RoundedCorner and WindowInsets.getRoundedCorner(int position), which provide the radius and center point for rounded corners.

Picture in Picture (PiP)

Android 12 introduces new features for picture-in-picture (PiP) mode.

Gesture navigation

Android 12 simplifies immersive mode to make gesture navigation easier and more consistent with the rest of the experience of activities such as watching a video and reading a book. Apps can still protect from accidental gestures in full-screen gaming experiences so users don’t accidentally quit out of their games while playing; all other full-screen or immersive experiences now allow users to navigate their phone with one swipe.

Rich content insertion

Android 12 introduces a new unified API that lets you receive rich content from any available source: clipboard, keyboard, or drag and drop.

Recents URL sharing

Users can now share links to the most recently viewed web content directly from the Recents screen. After visiting the content in an app, users swipe to find the app where they were viewing the content, then tap on the link button to copy or share the URL.

Camera sensor

Android 12 introduces new platform APIs that let third-party apps take full advantage of these versatile sensors. The new APIs support the unique behavior of these sensors and take into account that they might support different stream configurations and combinations when operating in full resolution or ‘maximum resolution’ mode vs ‘default’ mode.

Direct access to tombstone

Starting in Android 12, you can access your app’s native crash tombstone as a protocol buffer through the ApplicationExitInfo.getTraceInputStream() method. The protocol buffer is serialized using this schema. Previously, the only way to get access to this information was through the Android Debug Bridge (ADB).

AVIF image support

Android 12 introduces support for images that use the AV1 Image File Format (AVIF). AVIF is a container format for images and sequences of images encoded using AV1. It takes advantage of the intra-frame encoded content from video compression. This dramatically improves image quality for the same file size when compared to older image formats, such as JPEG.

Blurs, color filters

Android 12 adds the new RenderEffect that applies common graphics effects such as blurs, color filters, Android shader effects, and more to Views and rendering hierarchies. Effects can be combined as either chain effects (which compose an inner and outer effect) or blended effects. Different Android devices may or may not support the feature due to limited processing power.

Native animated image decoding

In Android 12, the NDK ImageDecoder API has been expanded to decode all frames and timing data from images that use the animated GIF and animated WebP file formats. When it was introduced in Android 11, this API decoded only the first image from animations in these formats.

Compatible media transcoding

Android 12 can automatically transcode HEVC(H.265) and HDR (HDR10 and HDR10+) videos recorded on the device to AVC (H.264), a format that is widely compatible with standard players.

Performance class

Starting with Android 12 features, Android introduces a standard called performance class. A performance class specifies hardware capabilities beyond Android’s baseline requirements. Each Android device declares the performance class that it supports.

Video encoding

Android 12 defines a standard set of keys for controlling the quantization parameter (QP) value for video encoding, allowing developers to avoid vendor-specific code. video encoders enforce a minimum quality threshold.

Bluetooth

Android 12 introduces the BLUETOOTH_SCAN, BLUETOOTH_ADVERTISE, and BLUETOOTH_CONNECT permissions. These permissions make it easier for apps that target Android 12 to interact with Bluetooth devices.

Privacy

A Privacy Dashboard screen appears in system settings. On this screen, users can access separate screens that show when apps access location, camera, and microphone information. Each screen shows a timeline of when different apps have accessed a particular type of data.

Permission group lookup

To determine the permission group into which the system has placed platform-defined permission.
To determine the platform-defined permissions that the system has placed into a particular permission group.

Hide application overlay

Android 12 introduces the ability to hide overlay windows that are drawn by apps that have the SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW permission.

Secure lockscreen notification

Android 12 adds the new setAuthenticationRequired flag to Notification.Action.Builder. This flag lets you add an extra layer of security to notifications on locked devices.

Bandwidth

In Android 12, the bandwidth estimation capabilities provided by getLinkDownstreamBandwidthKbps() and getLinkUpstreamBandwidthKbps() are improved for both Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity.

New directory for voice recordings

The system recognizes the audio files that are stored in the new Environment.DIRECTORY_RECORDINGS folder as recordings. When your app performs queries on the system’s media store, you can retrieve recordings by using the IS_RECORDING flag.

App storage access

An app can declare and create a custom activity that, when launched, allows the user to manage the data that the app has stored on the user’s device. Apps declare this custom “manage space” activity using the android:manageSpaceActivity attribute in the manifest file. File manager apps can launch this “manage space” activity even when the app doesn’t export the activity

Note: At the time of Editing Android 12 Features included above are still in beta version. with some minor or no changes Android 12 may be released soon.