Google announces Android 12L: What is it, how to get Developer Preview, top features

At the Android Developer summit on Wednesday, Google announced a new iteration of Android OS for tablets and large screen devices such as foldables. The company is calling it Android 12L.

Android 12 was release last week for eligible Pixel devices and soon will be available for other compatible phones. With adding a “L” to Android 12, Google is clearly aims to reach “large” screen devices. Android 12L, as the tech giant claims, will offer a much-enhanced experience for tablets, foldables and ChromeOS users.

In an official blogpost, Google claims currently there are over 250 million active large screen devices running Android. “With all of the momentum, we’re continuing to invest in making Android an even better OS on these devices, for users and developers,” the company said in a blogpost.

The tech giant states that in the last 12 months there have been nearly 100 million new Android tablet activations, which is a 20 percent year-over-year growth. It also adds that ChromeOS has now become the fastest growing desktop platform with growth of around 92 percent. Additionally, there has been a year-on-year growth of over 256 percent for foldables.

Android 12L top features

Google has released the developer preview of Android 12L, which will allow select users to try the new large screen features and optimize the available apps. With the Android 12L, Google brings improved UI performance on large screens across notifications, quick settings, lockscreen, overview, home screen, and more. System apps are also optimized in 12L.

The tech giant has also made multitasking more intuitive with 12L. It has added a new taskbar on large screens that will allow users to instantly switch to favorite apps on the fly. Not just that, the taskbar also makes split-screen mode much more discoverable than ever. Users will just need to drag-and-drop from the taskbar to run an app in split-screen mode.

Google has “improved compatibility mode with visual and stability improvements to offer a better letterboxing experience for users and help apps look better by default.”

Changes to Play store

To make it easy for users to find the best app experiences on their tablets, foldables, and ChromeOS devices, Google is bringing some changes to Play store as well. With Android 12L, the tech giant is adding new checks to assess each app’s quality against large screen app quality guidelines. Apps that are not optimized for large screens, users will get a warning message.

“We’ll also be introducing large screen specific app ratings, as announced earlier this year, so users will be able to rate how your app works on their large screen devices. These changes are coming next year,” Google said in an official blog post.

Release timeline

Android 12L feature drop will release early next year around the time for the next wave of Android 12 tablets and foldables, confirms Google. The company further adds that it is working with OEM partners to bring 12L features to their large screen devices. The first device will be the Lenovo P12 Pro.

How to enroll to developer’s preview

To get access to the developer’s preview of Android 12L, large screen users can download the 12L Android Emulator system images and tools.

Google also assures that Android 12L will be available for phones as well but since most of the new features won’t be visible on smaller screens, the focus is on tablets, foldables, and ChromeOS devices. The company plans to open up Android Beta enrollments for Pixel devices later.

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