What's New? Android 12 Developer Preview 2

Hi everyone,

The  android 12 developer preview is out and it’s  been out a couple days and many of you have been  asking me to cover it so I thought we’d visit it  and see if many of you are interested in it  now before we get started I would recommend  not installing this on your main device  I have this installed on the pixel 4  xl but if you have a newer pixel 5 for example  I would not install it as its fairly buggy  and this is a developer preview the beta will be  out in a month or so based on what Google has said  so its buggy enough that I’ve actually been stuck  in an app not able to go home and had to reboot  the device in order to get to the home screen. 

So I’ve had some strange bugs so far like that  but it is a developer preview now this did come  in about two gigabytes or so when I side loaded  it onto this device and well take a look at  the build number quick and you can see it says spp2.210219.008 so this particular build like I  said is for the pixel 4 xl but all of the changes  are the same and the first change is if you go to  the home screen and you go to unlock the device  if you’re not using the face unlock on the  pixel 4 you’ll see that its translucent like  normal but the button where you enter the passcode  after you’ve actually put it in and hit enter  no longer has a circle or a box around it. 

So  that’s a slight change there’s also no line here  as well compared to the previous version the next  thing is the music under the notifications for  example looks blue now it has a blue theme  on it based off the theme that you’ve set  across your os and you’ll see its blue here  its blue on the lock screen as well and if  you hit this button in the upper right this was  on the first developer preview you have a little  pop-up that shows you the different devices you  can connect to so this one just says phone speaker  or if I had my pixel buds connected I could switch  between the two so that’s new in this particular  update now one thing that they’ve updated that’s  not as good in this one is dark mode or the dark  theme. 

 

So if iIturn on dark theme you’ll see its  sort of gray in this particular update if I go  and pull down the notification shade it has more  of a gray tone to it and not a true black look to  it now this could affect battery since it’s still  lighting up those pixels so it’s something they’ve  changed that I’m not sure is for the better  this could change in future versions of course  now another option that’s kind of interesting is  if we go into the camera we now have the option  for split screen in camera so if you tap on the  icon at the top when you’re in your app  selector here for multitasking you can see split  screen tap on split screen and then you can select  whatever you want to go to so maybe well go to  settings and now we have split screen with the  camera as I’m moving it around in real time and  then our settings below the next change has to do  with widgets if I press and hold go to my widgets.  

You’ll see they’re alphabetical and if I tap on  one then I can see the widgets I can’t see them  otherwise now so you can see them all categorized  alphabetically tap on clock for example and now  you have the clock widgets so you can select them  that way let’s just clean this up a little bit but  it’s a small change also with the first developer  preview if you go to styles and wallpapers under  grid there’s some new grid options as well so  those were changed with the first one and it’s  a change in this one as well you have a couple  different options if you want giant icons or a  three by three grid or just the default whatever  you’d like it’s just changed a little bit and  you’ll see it was a little buggy there as well  now if I go into one of my videos they’ve updated  picture and picture as well so if I swipe home. 

It  takes a moment shows up and I can move the picture  and picture screen around and I can also expand it  to full screen almost now almost edge to edge also  while I’m busy doing something else I can swipe it  off the screen now on either side so I can leave  that playing you can still hear it if I turn it up it’s still playing and just resumes in the  background and as you’re going through this maybe  you’re just going through different apps or maybe  you’re in your camera you can swipe it off to  the side and still have it playing unless you’re  recording video of course then you would want to  pause this but it’s just something they’ve updated  here a little bit so that’s been updated for  picture-in-picture and it’s a little bit smoother  when you go into it and out of it now there’s a  new option that’s been added for a one-handed  mode. 

So if we go into our settings scroll down  go to system go to gestures scroll down again  we have one-handed mode and we can turn this  on or off if we turn it back on we have the option  to swipe down into a one-handed mode it works very  similar to apples reachability on ios can swipe  up or it will time out as well after eight seconds  of inactivity it will time out and you’ll see it’s  a little bit glitchy there as well so I can pull  down like this and if we leave it for a few more  seconds well wait for it to time out it should go back up but you’ll see it says exit when switching  apps and then you have the timeout of inactivity  and there it goes back up where it belongs so you  have that throughout the os and it’s been added  for everything now also if we go back into our  settings and then we go to connected devices under  connected devices go to connection preferences.  

And then go to nfc there’s a new option that  says required device unlock for nfc so it’s just  an option for security and you can see there’s new  toggles from the first version of the developer  preview but it says require device unlock for nfc  allow nfc payments and transit use only when  screen is unlocked so you now have that option  as well so it’s just a nice little addition that  they’ve added there also under battery they’ve  made some changes as well so if you go to battery  you now have the option to just view battery usage  here it was always a little bit of a pain to go  to the three dot menu and then go to your options  now it’s just one tap into your battery usage  so it’s a nice little update there and then.

Also the battery saver option is now just a  switch so before this wasn’t just a switch  you had to go into it and then then actually turn  it on like this so you’d have to go into it every  time to turn it on now it’s just a little bit  easier and you can tap a switch so they’ve updated  that in settings as well also there’s a new option  in accessibility so if we go to accessibility  under accessibility we go to text and display  under text and display we now have the option for  turn screen darker and this is sort of similar  to force dark theme where you can force it to  change it to a dark theme on all the apps  possible so if you turn it off. 

For example  you’ll see it sort of has some bugs there as well  and it will switch back and forth and sort of try  and force this throughout different apps so it’s  a nice little option there it’s just been changed  around here now in addition to this there’s a  couple developer options you can’t really see  that have to do with curved displays so developers  have more options to see if the display is curved  and then adjust their apps accordingly so  that’s something that’s been changed there’s also a hidden android 12 gaming toolbar that has  a dashboard for streaming your content so that is  here it’s not turned on yet but it’s something  that they’re adding in the future it looks like  and so those are the major changes with developer  beta 2. like I said this is fairly buggy and I  don’t expect it to be stable until beta 1 comes  out based off the android timeline that shouldn’t  be too far away and it will be much easier  to install  of having to side load it.