Google announces Android 12L with optimizations for foldables and tablets
Google has announced a new Android update with optimizations for large screen devices. This Android 12L update is intended for tablets, foldables, and also laptops with Chrome OS. Android 12L should be released early next year.
Google announced Android 12L at its Android Dev Summit. The update should make the mobile OS work better on large screens and optimizes the layout of the Android 12 interface for this, among other things. For example, the layouts of the home screen and the lock screen, the quick settings, and the notification overviews are divided into two columns, in order to make use of the entire screen space.
The split-screen interface. Source: Google
Android 12L also gets a taskbar that can be used to easily switch between different apps. Users can drag an app onto the interface from that taskbar to open it in a split-screen view. Apps that are not optimized for larger screens will also get visual changes from Google. For example, in the new update, smartphone manufacturers can configure the standard aspect ratio of such apps, and possibly apply rounded corners.
The new update should be available in early 2022, but the company has already made an Android 12L emulator available to developers for the Android Studio SDK. The announcement comes as no surprise; There have been rumors for some time about a possible Android 12.1 update with optimizations for foldable smartphones. Code of that OS also contained references to a foldable Pixel smartphone from Google.
Compatibility mode for apps and multitasking via the Android 12L taskbar. Source: Google