Android 12 includes a floating magnifier that works everywhere

Accessibility is one of the biggest challenges that operating systems of all kinds face when designing. Not everyone has the same physical abilities and developers strive to provide special features to improve the use of their systems.

Android 12 has also been improved in this section compared to Android 11, updating the magnifying glass feature with a floating window.

Two ways to expand content

The magnification feature is not new to Android, but it is the ability to activate a kind of floating window that works like a normal magnifying glass, i.e. it only magnifies the part where we place it, which means that we do not lose sight of the view in full screen.

In the image above, we can see the difference between maximizing a window with the new function or maximizing the entire screen, with the existing function.

How to use the new magnifying glass feature

To activate this function, we need to follow these steps:

• We go to mobile settings.
• We select accessibility.
• Click on the Expansion option.
• We select whether we want only the normal function or also the new floating window.

As of now, this feature is in Android 12, especially in the DP1 we’re testing, but we don’t know if it will reach the stable version, although the logical thing is to think so.