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Android 12 developer preview has a hidden (and broken) scrolling screenshot feature
Better late than never, Google
The first Android 12 preview is out. Yay! But it doesn't have scrolling screenshots. Boo! Well, don't boo too loudly — it looks like scrolling screenshots are there, but the feature isn't enabled in the current build. Maybe next time?
Google has released the latest version of its mobile OS, Android 10, but what's new? Your eagle-eyed Android Police editors (with your help) have been combing through the latest version for months since the earliest Android Q betas looking for new features, changes, improvements, and even setbacks. We've enumerated everything we've found here, together with a brief description of what it is or does. So, let's take a look at Android 10.
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It's been a long journey traveling from P to Pie through the Android 9 developer previews, but Google has recently finished its newest version of Android. The platform has worked its way down Alphabet's alphabet all the way to "P," with this latest version first landing back with the March 7th release of developer preview 1. We've since learned that Android P stands for Pie, but that's only one among a long list of changes present in Android 9, and we've been keeping track of all of them.
If there is one feature I've wanted in stock Android for a long time, it's the option to disable the vibration. I hate it with all my might and can't comprehend how so many OEM versions of Android have already understood the need to have a separate vibration option whereas stock just keeps it enabled regardless. Your phone rings? It has to vibrate too. No easy silent mode either, only vibrate or DND. Ugh, it's incomprehensible. But luckily, Android P has the burgeoning of a solution.
There are many controversial UI decisions in the Android P developer preview, many of which appear to be geared toward phones with screen notches. One interesting quirk is a definite lack of icons up in the status bar. Android P only shows four notification icons, but Oreo shows many more.
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- We're sorry we didn't notice this before or celebrate it with all the gusto it deserved, but the shaded white overlay that was introduced on top of the dock in P DP1 is gone in DP2, as seen in the screenshots above. Hallelujah! It was immensely ugly and we're super happy to see it go. (Thanks, AfrodanJ!)
The new developer preview for Android P is rolling out with tweaks and new features galore. It has some goodies inside that Google showed off during the keynote, as well as some improvements to the features we saw in DP1. The new Pixel Launcher (vQ-4753642) build is a bit of both. The rotation lock button is more useful, and the new app actions are available in the app drawer.
Google has cycled through various versions of Do Not Disturb functionality going all the way back to Lollipop. It was pretty complicated back then, but DND in Oreo is straightforward—DND keeps your phone from making noise. DND in the second Android P developer preview changes Do Not Disturb mode substantially. It blocks both audio and visual distractions by hiding most notifications on your device.
Google makes a lot of changes over the course of a developer preview, and sometimes those changes end up reverted before the final release. That may be the case for the quick settings, which changed a lot in DP1. No, not the overall style, which is still very different than Oreo. The layout in DP2 (above right) has, however, returned to the paginated version.
Today marks the 7th day that Android P's first developer preview has been available. In the time since, we've spent countless hours digging through P on our phones, decorticating every feature, and checking every tip about small and large changes alike. Our full list of P features has now surpassed 50 items and we've rounded them up with a quick description in case you don't want to spend hours reading each one (though we encourage you to). The main takeaway from P so far is the new focus on privacy and security, the addition of support for new hardware features (notches, dual cams), along with small but overdue changes that refine the Android experience.
With many connectivity options on our smartphones nowadays, it's easy to see how things can get very crowded on your status bar. LTE, WiFi, Bluetooth, and NFC get added to the time, battery level (and percentage), alarms, and maybe DND or hotspot icons to create a super cluttered status bar. Android has been allowing us to customize this in System UI Tuner for a while, and it has also made a few choices like removing the NFC icon when it's not actively transmitting data, even when NFC is on. The same is happening for the Bluetooth icon in Android P.
Tons of interesting little morsels have been uncovered in the first developer preview of Android P, and there are probably a few more surprises waiting to be found. Bug reporting can now be added to the list of improved areas. As before, you can report a bug from the developer options settings menu or with the power button shortcut if you enable it. Now, you should be able to view reports you've made via the Files app on your Pixel phone.
Adaptive brightness has long been a feature of Android smartphones. It uses an ambient light sensor, usually placed above the display, to measure the amount of light in the environment and change the brightness of the screen to best suit the conditions. It's often noticeable when changes occur, particularly right after you unlock your device, but now the quick settings brightness slider moves in tandem to further demonstrate this.
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- Edit: Rephrased. We apologize for the confusion in trying to explain the reasoning behind this. As pointed out by Ivan Carapovic, this change might be because Android P doesn't allow apps to use sensors and thus possibly the GPS when idle (thanks to XerBlade for explaining the distinction with background processes). However, ComputerWorld says the rule for idle sensors doesn't apply to GPS, though the documentation isn't super clear about it. Seems like we're back to square one.
Android P keeps on unveiling more and more of its hidden enhancements, and most of these have been relatively positive so far. This one, however, leaves me with my eyebrows raised a little. The location accuracy setting is now a binary choice of on/off, and it essentially removed the "battery saving" mode.
If the design of the iPhone X is notcha cup of tea (sorry), a slew of incoming copy-cat designs from Android OEMs is sure to get your blood boiling. Google's opinion on this is unknown, but it knows Android devices with notches are on their way and appreciates the need to accommodate such hardware designs with its next OS version.
Battery life is always the weak link in our smartphone-centric world, and you often find yourself baffled by the reasons why your battery drains way too fast one day and then seems to last forever the second day. Android has been trying to remedy that for many and many versions, and the latest Android 8.1 Developer Preview adds one more weapon to your arsenal in the fight against battery drainage. It won't help you win the war, but it will more easily answer the question of which app has been misbehaving and how.
So far, the changes we've uncovered in the Android Oreo 8.1 developer preview have mostly been superficial and/or relatively minor. This one's no different, even if it is rather useful. The 'Apps & notifications' section in settings is the place to get app info, choose which apps show notifications, or change permissions and defaults, among other similar functions. In the 8.1 dev preview, this menu has been updated to include recent apps.
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The Pixel 2 and 2 XL include a number of small tweaks that other 8.0 devices, even the OG Pixels, don't have. For example, the home screen's theme changes based on your wallpaper. We already knew that was coming to more phones in 8.1, and there's another theme feature from the Pixel 2 that's in 8.1 as well. Accent colors are pulled from your wallpaper for the notification and power menu shadows.
Developer Options is one of the two hidden settings menus in Android (beside System UI Tuner) and it gets enabled by tapping the Build Number in the About Phone section repeatedly. In previous versions of Android, Developer Options had one toggle up top that let you disable it and thus return all values to their default, but in Oreo, disabling the toggle also removes the menu entirely.
Turning on the developer options menu has been the same for who knows how long. You always open settings, go to 'About phone,' and tap on the build number for a certain number of times (though most of us simply tap on it furiously). However, the second Android O developer preview has added another step: entering your device's PIN, password, or pattern.
Ambient display on the Android O developer preview is doing some odd things right now. It's showing a minimal and less useful UI for some people, while others see something more akin to the old version. Whatever is going on there, we do know of one small (but useful) change to ambient display in O—covering the proximity sensor now puts the phone back to sleep.