This article is reproduced from Lei Technology
The competition in the smartphone market is coming to an end, but the iteration of the smartphone system has ushered in a new climax. MIUI, ColorOS, OriginOS, EMUI, OneUI, etc., all have brought major updates in interface design and functional interaction. They are all based on Android research and development, and they all shine in areas not covered by Google, pushing the Android ecosystem to New height.
The customized system is making great strides forward, but how should the native system change? We may be able to find the answer in the latest version of Android released today. Google has not retrieved the dessert code, nor has it continued to use the letter code of recent years, and directly called the new version of the system Android 12. It seems that they also realize that a simple and easy-to-understand name is a good name.
Judging from the various changes of Android 12, it not only hopes to provide assistance to various mobile phone manufacturers as in the past, but also wants to take more initiative through visual updates. The native system that most users don't recognize has a different idea than before.
New material design interface? Doing
There have been rumors that Android 12 will use the Material Design 3.0 interface, ushering in the biggest change in recent years. The first developer preview version did not bring many major interface updates, more like a tinkering with the previous style, such as adding more transparency effects to the notification center, and adjusting the notification display layout to look more natural.
Other system applications have also made similar changes. For example, the system settings are no longer pure white or pure black backgrounds, but changed to light blue or other theme colors. The style of some switches has also been changed to open the display "√" and close the display "-". Although there are no major changes, the new interface still provides information density more in line with large screens than the Material Design interface controls that have been used for many years.
XDA netizens still found a new hidden interface in the system, which seems to be quite leaky. It uses a large area of light color, and introduces a larger brightness slider and shortcut buttons. Compared with the current preview version, we can find that Google prefers to use transparency to provide a highly efficient mobile phone experience. Pure colors are good-looking but go against the current mainstream.
Large-screen mobile phones are already the undisputed mainstream. Many years after the customized system launched one-handed mode, Android 12 has finally been optimized for large screens. The first is the big title mode similar to the customization system. The interface title will be enlarged and displayed separately, making the interface menu easier to press. The second is the one-handed mode. There is currently no way to open it. It is more like a "rough house" for mobile phone manufacturers to develop custom.
The player controls built in the notification center have also been upgraded. Now you can set the apps that appear in it. There is no longer a situation where there are too many music apps and messy things. Another change is that the left swipe menu of notifications may become history. This design is hidden too deeply and few users know about it, and custom systems often adopt different designs, causing it to become a display completely.
The notification snooze function has a new entry. It displays an alarm clock icon directly on the notification, and you can make the app quiet for a while and then notify after a while. The new design has become more intuitive, but it also makes application notifications appear a bit crowded. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for Google to adjust the layout, but in China, more users will directly choose to turn off notifications.
There is also a major benefit for Pixel 5 users. They can finally hide the proactive camera in the system interface without wasting extra display area like customized mobile phone users. In the previous system, after the user turned on the hidden front camera, the status bar and the entire system interface were forced to move below the front camera, which wasted the phone screen and turned into a "big forehead" out of thin air.
No major new features, just want you to use it better
Prior to Android, a QR code sharing Wi-Fi network function was added, and Android 12 is a further upgrade, bringing the ability to share with nearby mobile phones through the Nearby function. Compared with sending the QR code directly, this is indeed more efficient and safer. In the domestic market without the Nearby function, the mutual transmission alliance formed by many manufacturers is still needed to make up for this vacancy.
The screenshot function of Android 12 adds a left swipe to eliminate the preview window, and also improves the screenshot editor to make cropping and graffiti more accurate, and it can also add stickers like third-party apps. However, the scrolling screen capture function rumored to be added in Android 11 has not yet appeared. For native users who want simple and convenient long screen capture capabilities, they may have to wait.
Transmitting data across applications has always been a big mountain that various customized systems cannot bypass when entering the desktop experience. Android 12 provides a solution. Google introduces a new program interface, after adaptation, multiple applications can directly copy and paste graphic content, even dragging. Improved multi-task efficiency is a major benefit to tablets and foldable devices.
Remember the dynamic vibration system that Sony added to Xperia phones? The mobile phone can vibrate regularly to enhance the sense of immersion according to the currently playing audio, video or game sound. Now Android 12 has system-level audio vibration capabilities, and it is not limited to the phone itself: when using the handle to play a game, the phone will send a vibration signal to the handle, making the experience closer to a game console.
In the past, native Android had an emergency contact function, but you had to turn on the screen to view it. There was no such thing as a customized system or iOS quick call. Android 12 finally makes up for this lesson. Users who use the native system can also press the power button five times to quickly start the SOS emergency call, which is a life-saving straw for users in danger.
The side-slide return that has been criticized in native Android has also been updated and can now be used directly in applications in full-screen mode.
This incident seems quite strange in the eyes of custom system users who are accustomed to sliding back, but Google has indeed not given a reliable solution in the past two years, making it easy for users to encounter false touches or touches when sliding back. It's another problem.
Privacy and basic experience continue to advance steadily
It is difficult for ordinary users to feel it directly, but privacy is still the top priority in Android's improvement work. Google said that in Android 12 it brings greater transparency and gives users more control, such as new identifier controls. There are quite a few privacy changes related to Internet applications, and the WebView called in the application is changed to a cross-site cookie setting consistent with Chrome.
Multiple low-level multimedia capability improvements will obviously make Android have a better audio and video experience: even if the device display does not support it, it can efficiently perform HEVC and HDR encoding and decoding; newly added support for AVIF images, compared with this format The popular JPEG has higher quality and smaller size, which fully caters to the needs of Internet content dissemination.
The experience of clicking the notification but not being able to open the application in the first time has appeared in the daily use of many users, and Google wants to change this status quo. The reason why the application launches from the notification is not fast is because the developer uses a trampoline-like middleware to realize the function, which consumes more resources and is slower. Android 12 will prohibit the "trampoline" to increase the opening speed.
The gradual progress of the main line plan "Project Mainline" also has a new voice. This time the component that has been added to the Google Play system update is Android ART. In other words, the underlying performance improvement can be updated through the app store. Whether domestic customized systems will provide similar capabilities depends on the degree of cooperation and strategic plans of mobile phone manufacturers.
Conclusion
The above is the update content of the first developer preview version of Android 12. The rumored features such as the new interface and the revolving interface with the human eye have not yet appeared, and may not appear until the preview version or the public beta version. If you want to see the full version of Android 12, I'm afraid it will take a few months to half a year.
You can currently experience it with Pixel 3 and later Pixel phones, but as the name suggests, it is still an early preview for developers, and bugs and imperfect features are normal. Therefore, we do not recommend anyone to try this system, just look at the improvements, or use it to urge application developers to follow up.
In accordance with the practice of previous years, Android 12 will be launched in public beta in May, some Android phones other than Pixel can be early adopters, and the official version will be launched in September. It can be said that the Android system already has a stable update cycle similar to iOS.
We are all saying that the systems of mobile phone manufacturers are trying to "split Android", but judging from the current news, they will integrate the new functions of their own systems with the underlying upgrades brought by Google, and continue to integrate them in the second half of 2021. Android 12 updates are available for listed phones.
It's just that how long this alliance of different hearts can last is long gone.