Android 12 is coming with some of the exciting features loaded into it. You will be surprised to see what’s coming next in your hand in the form of Android 12 that you would love to use and obviously it will make your work a lot easier.
Scrolling screenshots
Let’s begin with essentially the most annoying tidbits that got here out of the AMA i.e. Ask Me Anything— an replace on Android’s scrolling screenshot characteristic. That is one thing that is we were hinted of when building of Android 11 Beta was on the process, however Google shortly deflated any hope we had of it coming to the ultimate construct. In line with Google, “We’re nonetheless engaged on it, however it did not make the reduce for R.”
What is the huge holdup? Google is outwardly designing it to be an API that app builders can undertake. This is the total reply:
Rather than cranking out a quick hack that works for one or two hand-picked apps on a specific system, our aim on the platform group is to construct this in a approach that any app can plug into, whether or not they’re utilizing a bog-standard RecyclerView or have carried out their very own OpenGL-accelerated scrolling engine. We investigated this all through the R timeline, involving of us from the window supervisor and System UI groups; you can see this scrolling seize framework begin to take form within the AOSP supply.
Ultimately, as with each Android launch (and particularly on this uncommon yr), we needed to make arduous selections about the place to focus our restricted assets; whereas this can be a cool characteristic that we’re nonetheless actually enthusiastic about, we determined to not rush it. Search for it in a future API bump.
This is the factor, although — a scrolling screenshot characteristic would not must be an API. It may well simply be a system-wide characteristic that is carried out throughout the board, and as soon as that scrolling screenshot picture is saved, any app can deal with it how they need. Corporations like Samsung and OnePlus have provided their very own scrolling screenshot options for years, but for some motive, Google simply cannot determine this one out.
Enhanced Cloud backups
The cloud back up system of Google for Android is high quality, however there’s undoubtedly room for enchancment. Fortunately, Google says that issues are within the works on this entrance.
Relating to having extra detailed backup data, resembling having the ability to see and handle backups on your varied gadgets, there is a bit of fine information:
We all know that, particularly for customers with a number of gadgets, it is more and more vital to have the ability to drill into the element of which gadgets are backed up, how contemporary is that backup, and rather more. Many people at Google need precisely the identical factor! So, we hear you, and we could have extra to speak about on this space sooner or later.
Google’s backup course of at present has a restrict of 25MB for app data, and whereas Google says that is “greater than sufficient,” it additionally acknowledges that extra room is usually wanted by particularly heavy customers. For them, Google is:
Wanting into how finest to resolve that whereas being respectful of issues like data consumption and battery life, which will be adversely impacted by massive backup sets.
We additionally realized that Google would not plan on having a desktop-focused backup answer anytime quickly, and “within the subsequent few Android releases” will likely be killing off the previous adb backup characteristic:
Backing as much as a laptop computer or desktop is not a use case we’re prioritizing. Investing in each cloud backups and system to system migrations goes to be useful to extra customers. The truth is, we will be turning down adb backup within the subsequent few Android releases.
Some Extra restrictions on background killing of apps
For the previous few years, there’s been plenty of discuss firms that implement their very own programs for aggressively killing background apps in Android within the title of extending battery life.
Background kills is an advanced matter that our group has been engaged on for awhile – it would not assist that every manufacturer does it in a different way. We really feel the developer group’s ache and are dedicated to fixing it. We have been in discussions with many system producers to grasp the reasoning behind their implementations, not simply to protect battery life, but in addition to guard customers from misbehaving apps. On the similar time, we have been working to maneuver them away from utilizing excessive strategies resembling app force-stop which renders the app unusable for customers.
There are a handful of updates in Android 11 that hope to mitigate the difficulty, resembling requiring producers to correctly alert customers of killing background apps and including a brand new API that enables builders to see why their app was killed. They’re small steps in the appropriate route, however there’s nonetheless work left to be executed for future Android variations. Google is completely conscious of this:
These do not resolve every thing with background restrictions, and we’re removed from the end line. However we’re dedicated to proceed engaged on it, balancing making it simpler for the developer group whereas guaranteeing our customers get the most effective battery life doable.
Improvements in Gesture Navigation
Android 10 launched fully-gestural navigation to the working system, and whereas it is a marked enchancment over the two-button navigation with Android 9 Pie, the again gesture that interferes with hamburger (slide-in) menus still makes it really feel a bit clunky at instances. Google says that builders switching over to bottom navigation buttons is a “strong transfer” and that it’s throwing across the thought of getting a strategy to deal with the collision with hamburger menus:
From a system perspective, we’re nonetheless making an attempt to determine if we would like swipes to ever invoke the hamburger menu – given again swipe’s >300 times/day/user utilization, we’ll proceed biasing in opposition to hamburger menu’s low-use swipe (particularly as customers usually tend to tap the hamburger menu button on non-gesture-nav modes to entry the menu versus swiping from the sting).
Google can also be “seeking to enhance the gesture navigation again look & really feel,” however for these of you that actually hate it, it would not look like going anyplace anytime quickly. At the very least we all know that Google is aware of gesture navigation is not good and continues to be being labored on.
Better experience with 3rd Party system launchers
Third-party launchers are probably the greatest methods to customise your Android cellphone, however in Android 10, they are not all that nice — particularly on the subject of utilizing them with gesture navigation. Fortunately, work is being executed to deal with this:
We have made a number of enhancements in Android 11 that allows higher animations on app-switching / going home transitions for launchers. Candidly – we’re nonetheless assessing the most effective strategy to show a number of the deeper interfaces wanted into secure, public APIs and hope to have extra to share right here in a future launch.
Identical to so many of those options/updates, it is not very clear when any of this will likely be able to go. Even so, higher launcher compatibility is certainly one thing we will get behind. Having the ability to customise your cellphone with a launcher is a giant deal, and it is by no means good when that form of performance feels second-rate on Android.