Google has just published the first images that will allow developers (and the curious) to start testing Android 12, the new version of its mobile platform. As expected, Pixel users will be the ones who can install these images, which will be available for devices from Pixel 3.
It is still too early to know what are the big changes that the new version raises, but some of the news that affect the support of new video and image formats, news in notifications and improvements in the privacy section are known. Another fun fact: a preview version of Android TV 12 has also been published.
Careful JPG, AVIF arrives
Among the initial changes will be the support of new image and video formats, most notably. Thus, a new transcoding layer will allow the HEVC video format to be supported in applications that do not support these videos natively.
In Android 12 there is also support for spatial audio, for the MPEG-H codec and for up to 24 audio channels instead of the eight of the current versions of Android.
The AV1 image format, also known as AVIF, is another of the fronts on which Google seems to want to work with this version of its mobile platform. This format seems to take on a special role for Google, which with this impulse proposes to convert it into the de facto standard format compared to JPG.
Theoretically, AVIF offers better compression and lower losses and defects in the image after this compression. For now, yes, it will not be the native format when taking photos in the camera application of your Pixel.
There is also better support for so-called “rich content insertion”, which will allow you to cut, paste and drag multiple types of content, from plain or rich text to markup, images, videos or audio files.
Notifications, privacy … and Android TV 12!
Our colleagues at Technoeager already gave some clues about the new design and functions that are to come in Android 12, and although it is still too early to confirm it, it may be that the filtered images about changes in the interface effectively point to the existence of a theme Custom named “Silky” with an interesting look.
Google already explained that they were working on improving the notification interface to make them “more modern, easier to use and more functional. “The gestures will also be somewhat modified, and for example it is expected that to exit an application that we have in full screen, we only need one gesture to scroll the screen and not two as before.
Among the internal changes are those aimed at improving privacy: the WebView engine used by third-party applications will make use of a new feature called “SameSite” for managing cookies that will theoretically alleviate part of the tracking that websites and applications do during those sessions.
In this announcement there is also a special section for Android TV 12, the new version of its platform for Smart TVs and devices that offer that platform that will make use of the already known interface of Chromecasts with Google TV. At the moment it is not clear what additional changes this platform will bring, but that this preliminary version is already available as soon as it shows that this is also a key focus of the future of Google’s platform.
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