Android Police

This story was originally published 2021/03/03
7:38am PSTon Mar 3, 2021 and last updated 2021/03/25
7:18am PDTon Mar 25, 2021. 

• Update
  Now with 100% more DP2

Now that the Android 12 Developer Preview 2 has marinated on the world's Pixels for a while, most of the hidden features in that most recent release have probably been dug up. Rather than wade through our feature level coverage or different lists for different releases, here is the complete and full compendium of all features spotted in Android 12 up until now.

If this is your first Android Developer Preview rodeo, a bit of context: These early releases are works in progress. Some features we spot now may not make the final release, and plenty of features that will aren't even present yet. Excluding bug-fix updates, at least 6-7 more builds are planned before the final stable release, so we've barely touched the surface of what to expect when Android 12 lands later this year.

Much of our current knowledge is based on "hidden" features which are not currently enabled or user-facing, but nonetheless present in a disabled, partly work-in-progress state inside recent releases. Everything we know about those features could change with a single update.

Note that the organizational logic for the features listed below is also subject to change. As new releases land, different categories may ultimately be more appropriate. Expect to see individual features shuffled around between sections over time (the "Hidden" features probably won't stay hidden forever), and reversions will be struck from the list.

One last thing. Before we jump in, I'd like to thank you, our readers, for your regular tips and support. Covering all the changes in Android 12 would be much, much harder without your help, and we ❤️ you.

The Android 12 feature list

Entirely new Android 12 features

Most of the big headlining changes are still "hidden," so expect this section to be plumped out later.

• Android 12 is known internally as Snow Cone: Tasty treats are dead, long live the tasty treats.
• Reduce bright colors accessibility toggle: A new quick-settings toggle to reduce bright colors (previously called "Reduce brightness") was spotted in development for Android 12, and is live as of DP1.
• Emergency SOS: Press the power button five times quickly and you can trigger an iOS-like emergency call countdown.
• Gesture to pull down the notification shade from the bottom of the screen: a swipe down near the nav-bar can trigger the notification shade, but it interferes with the new one-handed mode, which uses the same trigger.
• One-handed mode
  • First spotted in development before Android 12 actually landed, DP1 includes the hidden feature, which clones Apple's Reachability with a vertical height adjustment for one-handed use — this is in contrast to most other Android solutions which scale things both vertically and horizontally.
  • It's live as of DP2 as well, triggered when enabled by a swipe down in the gesture or navigation area, though that conflicts with the new identical gesture for notifications.
• Rear double-tap gesture: First rearing its head all the way back with Android 11, the long-awaited rear double-tap gesture for Pixels may finally land with Android 12.
  • As of DP2, the setting that controls it has started showing up, but it still doesn't actually work. We also know a little more about the options it will have, though, like launching the assistant or recent apps menu, with a further setting to "require harder taps." It's also hard-coded to the Pixel 5 right now, so it may not come to all Pixels.

"Hidden" and upcoming Android 12 features

• Android 12's big visual redesign
  • "Material NEXT:" The evolution of Google's Material Design language apparently going to debut with Android 12.
  • Theming
    • An early report alleged that Android 12 would be adding a new theming system that would even modify the appearance of other apps (if they supported it).
    • Later mockups showed off what may have been a themed interface and other UI changes that could potentially be Pixel-specific as part of a new "Silk" or "Silky" theme.
    • Wallpaper-based themes in Android 12 were then spotted in testing and manually enabled. The system, called "Monet," can pull colors from your wallpaper and dynamically create a theme that works with it, covering both the Settings app, notifications, subtle elements in the lock screen, and more.
  • Lock screen adjustments 
    • New lock screen clocks: First revealed before DP1's release, Android 12 is set to include customizable lock screen clocks, which have been spotted intermittently in development across Android 10 and Android 11
      • Hidden in DP1, we caught our first glimpse of these changes, and they also include adjustments for the always-on display layouts.
    • An overhaul of the pattern lock screen is reportedly coming for Android 12. (This may be here, or Google could have more planned).
    • Power menu smart home controls from Android 11 may come to the lock screen or keyguard.
    • Hidden lock screen animation: DP2 sports a hidden animation for transitioning to and from the lockscreen, which expands out from the power button.
  • Notifications
    • Overall redesign: First spotted in what are likely mockups prior to Android 12's release, the first changes in what we expect to be a bigger notification and notification shade redesign were hidden in DP1. That includes a thicker brightness bar, increased white space padding, and some Quick Settings toggle tweaks, though other changes are likely planned.
    • Bubble notification tweaks: New animations with "softer" transitions are planned. In landscape, bubble notifications will also be moved to the side of the screen and listed vertically, where they're less likely to block content rather than staying at the top.
    • Experiment disables notification half-swipe: Spotted in-development as part of DP1, Google may kill the notification half-swipe used to access things like notification settings on a per-app basis and snooze — though snooze has a new spot in Android 12, so no big loss.
    • "Automatic" sound/vibration setting for notifications: Hidden in Android 12 is a new setting that lets "the system determine if a notification should make sound or vibration," which also raises or lowers its priority, seemingly. A red arrow or blue arrow will indicate when that has happened, indicating when a notification has been raised or lowered, respectively, likely also associated with other Adaptive notification tweaks in Android 12 DP1.
  • Widgets
    • New Conversations Widget: Spotted first in a leaked mockup, Android 12 has a hidden "Conversation" widget, in development under the "People Space" name that can pull things like communications from the Google Messages app.
      • It's still not user-facing, but the upcoming People Space widget is a bit further along in DP2, and we know a bit more about the workflow to set it up. You can select from a list of recent conversation-tagged notifications, and apps like Telegram and Slack are supported. The Widget defaults to a 3:2 size.
    • Widget stacks: Hidden and disabled by default in DP1 is a new feature to enable side-scrolling widgets — at least, for Google's own At a Glance smart space.
  • "Silky Home" settings layout: Android 12 has a hidden "Silky Home" mode, which can be enabled via ADB and adjusts how the Settings app looks to resemble Samsung's OneUI. It could be a Pixel-exclusive change, something tied to Android 12's theming system, or part of the larger Material NEXT redesign.
• Privacy, including privacy indicators and toggles
  • New privacy indicators: Android 12 may show dots or icons in the corner of your screen at certain times, indicating when apps are accessing your camera or microphone. Yes, it sounds just like the iOS feature that debuted last year, but Google's actually been working on this since Android Q, and a leaked Android 10 GSI from 2019 even had the feature. Now, with Android 12 in 2021, we might finally get it.
    • New explicit warnings that the camera and mic are about to be turned on: It's currently hidden, but Android 12 may ask you every time you want to turn your camera or mic on for an app.
    • Privacy indicators spotted but still hidden: The long-awaited Android 12 privacy indicators are partially working in DP2, but they're still not user-facing yet.
  • New quick settings toggles to disable Camera and Mic: Potentially related to the new privacy indicators still in development, Android 12 also has hidden dedicated quick settings toggles to control both the microphone and camera.
  • Permissions Usage dashboard: Spotted all the way back in Android Q, this feature gives an overview of which apps are using permissions. It has appeared again in Android 12 DP1, though it's hidden, disabled, and labeled as "internal only."
  • App tracking crackdown: Google says it may match Apple's commitment to app-based tracking and customer privacy, popularized by the recent Apple vs. Facebook drama, but there aren't any signs of changes in Android 12 (outside minor things like the MAC ID lockdown, etc.).
• Multitasking
  • App pairs: Cloning a feature from Samsung phones, Google has been working on the ability to manage a pair of apps together as one while multitasking with multi-window mode, which could come in handy for both tablets and Android foldables.
  • Double-tap divider swap app positions in multi-window mode: The divider separating apps in Android 12's multi-window mode may allow you to swap the app's positions when double-tapped.
  • Android 12 DP2's hidden taskbar: In what could be a boon to multitasking, a benefit for big screens, or a change for Android's long-developed desktop mode, there's a new taskbar hidden in Developer Preview 2. It's persistent across the UI and almost Chrome OS-like, giving you quick access to your recent apps.
• Improvements to third-party app stores: We haven't seen any changes live just yet, but Google promised last year that it would make it easier for folks to install third-party app stores on Android, without compromising on user security.
• "Hibernation" for unused apps: A new system in Android 12 can optimize apps for storage in a "hibernated" state — seemingly if they go too long without being used, but it could be a manual process.
• Restricted networking mode: Spotted in development earlier this year, Android 12 may get a feature that locks down networking permissions to just a handful of privileged system apps, though we aren't sure how it will manifest in a user-facing way.
• Fonts and emoji decoupled from the system: Android 12 may let us finally update fonts and emoji separately from the system itself. That means you wouldn't have to wait on a manufacturer update to enjoy the latest emoji.
• "Letterbox" feature: We don't know how it will work or what it will look like, but Google is working on a method to place an app inside a frame or window with adjustable colors and corners.
• Better Dark Theme support for app splash screens: If apps support it, Android 12 may be able to generate better Dark Theme-compatible splash screens when they're launched to help prevent you from being suddenly blinded at night.
• Runtime resource overlay improvements: Android 12 allows for on-the-fly generation of RROs. For end-users, this could be what powers Android 12's upcoming theme system, but developers may find other applications.
• Game Mode: Android 12 may finally add a first-party Game Mode similar to that already implemented by other smartphone manufacturers, with things like an automatically-engaged Do Not Disturb mode, locked screen brightness/auto-rotation, and more.
  • This will likely include a dedicated toolbar, which was spotted in development in DP1, though it could be Pixel-exclusive.
  • It's still disabled and hidden by default, but DP2 has more of that game mode stuff going on inside of it, including a dashboard with quick-access to a handful of toggles/tools, DnD mode, and some larger boxes that might be used for something else — though it could be a Pixel-exclusive feature.
• Face-based auto-rotate: An AI/camera-powered feature that may debut with Android 12 (or potentially land as part of a Feature Drop update — we aren't sure) will be able to adjust auto-rotation to take into account the angle of your face as you look at your phone. So even if you're on your side, your phone won't blindly accept gyroscope data and rotate to landscape unless that's how you're holding it.
  • It looks like this may not be a Pixel-exclusive feature, either, according to the latest info.
• Scrolling screenshots: After years and Google's mercurial attitudes, scrolling screenshots are in Android 12 — hidden and broken, but they're there.
• Machine learning-augmented gestures: Android 12 has a new on-device machine learning model that seems to be tuned to refining how gesture navigation is triggered — currently and specifically, with variable tolerances for the back gesture.
• Pixel launcher search bar customization: Another one of those "hidden" features, DP2 has some in-development tweaks to the search bar on Pixels that could extend results to include slices, widgets, contacts, Play Store listings, and more.
• App icons in toast messages spotted in hidden test: It's hidden and disabled by default, but DP2 contains a test that includes app icons for toast messages.
• "Smart Forwarding:" For dual-SIM devices, DP2 adds a feature that will allow you to forward calls between two SIMs on your phone — useful, for example, if one has service while the other doesn't. However, it doesn't actually seem to be live for us just yet, so we assume it's still hidden for now.
• Quick settings tile for smart home controls spotted in-development.

Visual changes

• Changing background colors
  • Dark theme is no longer AMOLED black: Android 12 DP1 makes things gray again, perfect for emphasizing every inconsistency in your smartphone's OLED display at minimum brightness at night. (Not a fan, if you can't tell.)
    • In DP2 dark theme is even brighter. At this rate it'll be a flat white by summer. The normal bright/white theme is also just slightly gray in DP2.
  • New blue Settings: Potentially tied to Android 12's theming system (and, therefore, it could be subject to change), but Android 12 DP1 has a new blue-ish look to the Settings menu.
    • As of DP2 the blue is gone.
• New toggles: Android 12 rolled out a visual redesign for big top-of-list category toggles that include a secondary icon indicator for their state beyond color and position — potentially useful for accessibility, especially if the upcoming theme system doesn't play nice with colorblind-confusable colors.
  • They're in more places now as of DP2.
• Custom notifications can no longer theme the entire notification: Android 12 changes the customizable area for notifications to be a little smaller, ensuring greater consistency with other visual elements like app name/header and expanding/collapsing indicators.
• Android 12 lets you hide/mask the hole punch on the Pixel 5: Pretty self-explanatory, but Android 12 allows you set the display cutout setting in developer options to "Hide" for the Pixel 5, 4a, and 4a 5G, making the status bar black and solid in a way that hides it.
• Lock screen
  • Thicker pattern unlock: DP2 rolls out a chunky line for pattern-based unlock that matches your accent color.
  • PIN layout tweaks: Android 12 DP2 drops the break between the pin pad and the bulleted entry field and moves things up a bit.
  • Enter button loses accent color, emergency call button gets it and gets bigger: The old DP2 switcheroo as the enter button for your pin loses its colorful bubbly appearance to match the rest of the pin pad and the emergency button gets a slightly taller and rounded background to match your accent color.
• Compact widget picker: Android 12 DP2 rolled out a new more compact layout for the widget picker. Widgets are still sorted by app, but each app's list is collapsed by default, making it a little less busy and faster to scroll to the app you need.
• Media player picks up accent colors: Android 12 DP2 is all about that better theme integration, and your custom accent colors will now apply to the Media Player's background as well, rather than just having it pick up from the album artwork for whatever is playing.

Privacy and security changes

• SameSite cookie tweaks in WebView: Enhancing user security and privacy to match changes previously made to Chrome.
• MAC address access restrictions: To enhance user privacy, all apps, regardless of SDK level, will be unable to see your phone's true MAC address, reducing the identifiers apps might try to use to track you without your permission.
• Pending intents must declare mutability: It's technical, but in short, this should make how certain intent types are handled a little more secure.
• Safer exporting of components: Apps targeting Android 12 must explicitly declare a specific attribute to make the use of intent filters more secure.
• Debugging feature for nested intents: To help encourage the more responsible use of intents, Android 12 has a debugging feature to point out when nested intents are done unsafely.
• Further overlay-based attack mitigation: With some exceptions, Android 12 will block touches where an overlay may be obscuring the app in an unsafe way.
• Notification listener "unbridging:" DP2 will let you control which apps a listener service can intercept and read notifications from. As an example, Wear OS or your Launcher may pull from notification content, and this gives you granular controls for what they can and can't access on a per-app basis.
• New app overlay controls: Developers making apps for Android 12 can declare that certain content can't be drawn over. This can enhance security and further mitigate overlay attacks.
• More lock screen notification visibility options: Android 12 will add more granularity to lock screen interactions. For example, seeing notifications without authentication but being restricted from notification button interaction until you pass your keyguard, etc., though this probably won't do much until developers implement it.

Modifications to existing features

• Better Wi-Fi sharing with Nearby Share: Spotted in development before DP1 landed, the first release included support for sharing Wi-Fi credentials via the new Nearby Share feature that debuted last year in 2020.
• Screenshots
  • Swipe to dismiss screenshots: Android 12 adds a swipe to dismiss gesture for the screenshot notification overlay, which is a little easier to intuit than the tiny X icon in the corner.
  • Better screenshot editor: Android 12's revamped screenshot editor adds text and emoji markup and an eraser tool, plus a handful of other more minor tweaks.
    • This improved editor is also accessible via a new Edit shortcut in the share sheet.
• Haptics
  • Haptic-coupled audio effects: Android 12 will debut a new system that allows audio to trigger haptic vibration dynamically.
  • Redirect vibration to game controller: It doesn't work just yet, but the feature has been spotted in DP1, and based on the description tied to it, it should allow Android devices to send their own haptic feedback to gamepads.
• Bluetooth game controller battery level API: Games that support this will be able to tell you when your controller's battery is running low.
• Tapping an app icon in a notification expands content: Simpler than a one or two-finger drag, like we've had for ages.
• Notification snoozing tweaks: Potentially tied to a feature spotted in-development that disables the notification half-swipe, Android 12 moves the trigger to "snooze" or delay notifications until later to a new icon in the bottom-right corner of notifications.
• Media controls
  • Media control limits: The new Quick Settings-integrated media controls introduced in Android 11 have a bit more granularity in Android 12, and you can limit them to only appear for certain apps.
  • Larger controls with bigger artwork: Android 12 plumps up the media control layout slightly.
• Adjusted permissions dialog: There's a shortcut to Settings and an "Always Access" option for apps accessing the microphone or your location in related permissions dialogs.
• Adaptive notification ranking reset: The ability to reset notification importance was added to the adaptive notification ranking toggle, itself a feature that silently debuted with Android Q, allowing your phone to learn which notifications you consider important and dynamically adjust their order or priority.
• New safety & emergency section in settings: Goes right to the Safety app on Pixels, so it's probably Pixel-only.
• Pixel Launcher picks up 4x5 grid size: This is probably more tied to the launcher than Android 12 (and may later be struck from the list), but DP1 added an extra grid size for the Pixel Launcher.
• Better gestures in immersive mode: Android 12 makes exiting full-screen immersive views a single swipe, rather than two as gesture mode forced on prior Android versions.
• Accessibility settings reshuffle: Android 12 rearranges a few categories in Accessibility, grouping them differently without the line separators between sections.
• 5G Dual-SIM dual standby for Pixels: Spotted in DP1, Android 12 enables this feature on the Pixel 5, which allows simultaneous use of two connections even if one is 5G, without forcing a fallback to 4G/LTE. However, it could land on Android 11 via a later monthly update or Feature Drop.
• Magnification window for accessibility: Android 12 lets you enable magnification for just a small part of the display, rather than the entire screen, with a floating window that you can move to focus on specific areas.
• Screen timeout and Screen attention settings pages merge: All just in one spot as of Android 12 DP1, rather than two different sub-menus.
• Picture-in-picture tweaks
  • Picture-in-picture "stashing:" A new feature in Android 12 may let you "stash" a picture-in-picture window partly offscreen as needed.
    • This is live (but hidden) in DP1.
    • And now it's live for everyone in DP2.
  • Picture-in-picture resizing: Google is adjusting how picture-in-picture resizing works on Android 12. Instead of the corner drag, things like a double-tap and pinch will be able to adjust dimensions.
    • This is live (but hidden) in DP1.
    • Again, this rolled out and is no longer "hidden" in DP2.
• Accessibility menu clean-up: Google has shuffled around some of the accessibility settings in DP2, especially in the text and display sub-menu, giving you another location for the dark theme toggle and the new options to dim the display and reduce bright colors.
• Notification listener "unbridging:" DP2 will let you control which apps a listener service can intercept and read notifications from. As an example, Wear OS or your Launcher may pull from notification content, and this gives you granular controls for what they can and can't access on a per-app basis.
• Fitness tracker improvements: Apps that manage fitness trackers or other connected devices can tell the system to wake them when that hardware is connected, and they'll stay awake while those devices are nearby.

Developer-facing changes

• Apps will open faster from notifications: Android 12 will force developers to use a better system when calling their apps from a notification which should be much faster.
• Better support for rich content: A new unified API allows you to pull content from a clipboard, keyboard, or even just drag and drop. There's more to it than that, but in short, users can move content like photos or videos between apps even more easily in Android 12.
• HEVC and HDR transcoding: Android 12 will allow apps to work with the new format, even if they don't directly support them, converting between HEVC or HDR and AVC on the fly, and it's easy for developers to implement. For you, that means fewer issues playing back content recorded on other devices.
• Android 12 is also coming to Android TV: Probably to be expected.
• AVIF image support: Android 12 adds support for the new container format, which can hit a higher quality at lower sizes compared to older formats.
• New Mainline modules
  • Android Runtime is a Project Mainline module now: Google has further broken out system components into Play Store-updatable modules in Android 12, including the core Android Runtime (ART). This means more system bits can be updated for security once your phone stops getting regular updates, and critical updates for related components can be deployed more quickly than once per month.
  • Transcoding is a mainline module now, too.
• Peer-to-peer connections coexist with an existing Wi-Fi connection: As long as your hardware supports it, Android 12 can maintain a peer-to-peer connection together with your existing Wi-Fi connection, which could be a boon for things like smart home device setup.
• Ultra-wideband APIs: System-only for now, but Android 12 will have support for the new ultra-wideband hardware popularized by Samsung and Apple.
• Improved Binder IPC calls: This means potentially faster performance for certain apps doing certain things.
• Native ImageDecoder can decode GIF and WebP: Cutting down reliance on third-party libraries, ImageDecoder can pull all frames from animation files now.
• Foreground service restrictions: Apps targeting Android 12 that are running in the background can no longer start foreground services outside a handful of special cases.
• SDK lockdown: As with each Android release, Google is deprecating a handful of undocumented SDK interfaces/APIs.
• Textured ripple animation: A new patterned ripple effect is available for animations in DP2, together with an iOS-like overscroll bounce.
• Brand new API for rounded corners: These days, phones curve the edges of their screens to better fit snugly against the curved corners of the body itself, reducing bezels and providing a subjectively "cleaner" look. Because the size of those curves can and do vary, Google is rolling out a new API that apps can query to figure out exactly how those corners are curved and better adapt content to suit it. For us, that means content will better fit on phones with rounded corners.
• New API for app checksums: Android 12 has a new, faster and more secure system to test installed app package integrity.
• Bandwidth estimation API enhancements: Newer and ostensibly better results on estimates for throughput on cellular or Wi-Fi connections.
• Easier visual effects for blurs, color filters, and more: Android 12 rolls out a handful of new tools for developers to play with to do things like blur an ImageView or make other visual effects in their apps more easily.