The new version of Android, Android 12, has been official for weeks, it has been released for the Google Pixel and the manufacturers are already finalizing their respective updates adapted to their proprietary layers. But that hasn’t stopped Google’s system from continuing to evolve and keep tabs on tablets and devices with a foldable screen. This is how Android 12L was born, for ‘Large’ or ‘Large’, and the first beta is already here.
After it was announced, all that was left was to release the system so that we could start testing it firsthand, and Google has officially done that already. The first beta of Android 12L is now available for Pixel phones and we downloaded and tested it on a Google Pixel 5. For some reason, the Pixel 6 will have to wait a bit longer. Well let us tell you how things went with her.
Android 12L decaffeinated for mobile
The day dawns with a message that drives tech lovers crazy: “You have a system update available. So said and done, we set our Pixel 5 to download the update 240 megabytes and after a few minutes, and its corresponding restart and system configuration, we already have Android 12L Beta flowing through our mobile phone’s veins. It is therefore time to talk about their news.
Let’s start with the new animations, since Android 12L is refining certain aspects that were already present and which now stand out more than before. For example, opening and closing apps is much smoother and the animations are slowed down to make them more enjoyable. When we move from an open application to the desktop, we can see in more detail how the window shrinks until it disappears on the icon and how the icon receives the window with a little bounce effect. A striking effect on small screens and which surely makes a lot more sense on large screens.
Another graphical effect that changes is that fades to (and from) black are now slower and smoother. Android was already showing this effect by turning the screen off and on, but when the animation slows down everything is more appealing. Now we can clearly see how the desktop darkens to black when we turn off the screen, and the effect is really nice and more attractive. When switching on the same thing happens and the screen turns on more slowly so that we can see how the desktop (or the app we have open) appears in the shadows. And we are also on an OLED screen, so the ignition is even more natural.
The animations are smoothed and the system becomes more attractive and the animations more organic
There are several improvements that we could not test due to being on a Pixel 5, such as those that depend on displays larger than 600 dots of inch and those that are built into large screens. So we couldn’t see how the new two-column taskbar or the new multitasking options worked. These options are currently outside of the functions for mobile phones, at least in the one we tested and for the first beta of the system. We also know that these are functions present in the emulator when the test option on tablets is activated.
Another option currently disabled (Android 12L Beta on a Pixel 5) is the option to decide how long we need to press the Home button to launch the Google Assistant. In the emulator, we have up to five intermediate steps available, from “Short” to “Long”, so that we can decide how much to press to talk to the Assistant, but this option, present in the System Gestures settings, is not yet available on Pixel phones.
The 2 column options do not appear in the mobile beta of Android 12L, neither on the normal screen nor in the taskbar.
Since we are on a cell phone, the keypad to enter the PIN code (if we do not opt for the imprint or it fails) keep appearing in the center screen, without modifications, as this is another exclusive option for tablets. Of course, we also don’t have the new dock available, which we can test out when we emulate a tablet. Another function for large diagonal screens that does not reach cell phones.
Note: We simulated sufficient pixel density to enable tablet modes from system developer options (600 dpi or higher) and the beta did not enable any of these special features. So either they’re disabled in this first beta, or the beta knows we’re on mobile and hasn’t installed them.
So we came across a first beta of Android 12L for mobile somewhat decaffeinated, with several graphic changes in the animations of the system but without additions in terms of practical day-to-day functionality. It was suspected that Android 12L would be more of an adaptation of Android 12 for screens without renowned additions and the first beta, at least the first for cellphones, seems to confirm this in some way. We’ll see what we find in future betas, as Google tends to hide surprises in later versions of the system. We will stay tuned.
