Back in October, Google held its annual Android Dev Summit where it announced a new ‘special feature drop’ for Android called Android 12L. It’s essentially the same Android operating system you know and love, except this time with a bunch of new optimisations and features to make it easier to use and more polished on large screen devices like tablets and foldable smartphones.
However, back then it was still only available in a developer preview, it has now gotten a full beta release. However, the Android 12L Beta is only available for the Google Pixel 3a and newer, with support for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro currently unavailable but will be supported soon. This also means that you’ll actually not be able to mess about with all of the cool new features like a two-column notification shade and optimised split screen multitasking. You will though be able to test out the new Android 12L APIs, something that might be beneficial for you if you’re a developer, or perhaps you simply want to be an early adopter.
To do so, you’ll need to first enroll in the Android Beta program for Pixel. Once you’ve enrolled, your Pixel device will then get OTA software updates that’ll bring you the latest Android 12L Beta build. While you won’t need to do a full reset of your data, you should nevertheless backup your files before enrolling in the Android Beta program. Alternatively, you can also manually flash the new Android 12L Beta build. You can check out the Android Beta for Pixel program here.
If you do want to try out the Android 12L Beta on a large screen device, you’ll have to wait for a bit. Google has partnered up with Lenovo, allowing for the Lenovo Tab P12 Pro to be the first to get access to early builds of Android 12L Beta. However, at time of writing, Lenovo is still only offering the older Developer Preview 1 build but updates are set to come in the near future. With that being said, the Lenovo Tab P12 Pro isn’t officially available in Malaysia just yet, like the Google Pixel devices, and so the only way to try it out here would be with the Android 12L emulator via Android Studio.
In case you missed our earlier post covering the Android 12L special feature drop, it brings a host of new stuff to help improve the user experience on large screen devices. This includes features like a two-column notification shade for a simpler layout that makes use of the bigger screen real estate. The same goes for the lockscreen, where instead of a giant pattern unlock screen it’s now moved to the side. Android 12L also comes with a split screen feature with a taskbar to easily pop open your most used apps side by side when you need them.
For more information about the Android 12L Beta, you can check out the beta announcement post or the Android Developers website.
