The all-new Android 12 is finally out!

The Update

 

With Android 12, the globally popular mobile operating system is carving out its own key marketing features and differences from Apple's iOS. The updated OS, available for Pixel 3 or above, builds on some of the OS strengths while also introducing some new capabilities.

 

The compatible smartphones get an update to Google's Android 12 OS from 19th October.

 

New Features

 

Customization becomes especially critical when a phone looks exactly like every other smartphone ever manufactured. Google introduces the 'Material You' feature in Android 12: changing the background adjusts the entire experience to match the shades. 

 

Color extraction techniques included in the OS make the look and feel more unified and sleeker. The lock screen, notifications, settings, widgets, and even applications can be customized. Material You is first accessible on Pixel handsets, and will thereafter be scaled out to other devices in the future.

 

As reported by TechCrunch, other themes in the OS are privacy and security. For instance, Android 12 allows users to keep their specific location masked from apps that just require an estimated location to operate.

 

 A new status-bar indication now lets users know when an app is accessing the microphone or cameras. A pair of new toggles introduced in the Quick Settings to switch the camera and microphone off throughout the whole OS. 

 

(Recommended Blog: Streaming Android Camera using OpenCV)

 

The OS also offers features to lock rarely used apps by automatically removing permissions after a period of inactivity.The OS also isolates the location and Bluetooth connections for the first time. Google says that the wireless headphones don't necessarily need location access to connect to the smartphone. Thankfully, with Android 12, this is feasible.

 

In recent versions of Android, Google released a slew of new Google Lens features, like the option to do optical character recognition on any screen snap. Android 12 brings new features like "scrolling screenshots".

 

(Related Reading: Google Photos- One of the Google AI Projects that integrate with Google Lens)

 

 Users can now capture all of the stuff on a page in a single snapshot with the new scrolling screenshots. Android 12 adds more than just functionality; it also offers power-saving mode and accessibility enhancements. Hot-updates are also being rolled out by the firm, allowing users to continue using an app while an update for the same app is being downloaded and installed in the background.