After three developer previews and five beta builds, Google officially released Android 12 to AOSP a couple of weeks ago. Also, Google had then announced that Pixel phones, starting from the Pixel 3, will get the update in the next weeks. Well, that day is finally here. Alongside the launch of the Pixel 6 series, which is the first to run Android 12 out-of-the-box, the Mountain View giant is rolling out its latest Android update to compatible Pixel phones.
The blog post goes on to talk about some of the best new Android 12 features. The biggest highlight of Android 12 has to be its Material You wallpaper-based theming system. Behind the scenes, app developers at Google have been hard at work implementing Material You theming support across all popular Google apps, including Chrome. The company has also introduced a redesigned quick settings panel with bigger buttons in an attempt to improve one-hand usage.
Visual tweaks aside, the operating system improves upon Android’s existing privacy features with a privacy dashboard and privacy indicators. Now, you will see a green indicator whenever an app uses your camera or microphone. You can get also Privacy Dashboard and indicators on older Android phones, thanks to the efforts of a third-party developer. Google has also introduced a Private Compute Core sandbox to help unify data access to ML features.
One practical improvement in this update is the addition of scrolling screenshots. You no longer have to rely on third-party screenshot apps for taking a long screenshot. Those interested in this nifty feature can go through our guide on how to take scrolling screenshots in Android 12. For more features, do not forget to take a look at our list of the best Android 12 features.
The update has started rolling to the Pixel 3 series and later models. That includes the Pixel 3/ 3XL, Pixel 3a/ 3a XL, Pixel 4, Pixel 4a/ 4a 5G, Pixel 5, and Pixel 5a. You can head over to “Settings -> System -> System update” and check for the latest update on your Pixel smartphone.
