Android 12 Update Leaks Reveal New Privacy Features and More!

Lee Mercado, Tech Times 14 April 2021, 11:04 am

The much-awaited Android 12 update proves to have more up its sleeve until an anonymous leaker exposed some of its hidden features.

Google's first developer preview of the Android 12 was first in February and scheduled the release of its third iteration anytime in April 2021.

With its release comes a rumor that the highly unstable iteration includes new codes not previously seen in the published developer previews including privacy features, as well as design and functional changes.

Android 12 Functional Update Leaks

Android 12 had been rumored to improve on a number of its features even before its release, including its split-screen multitasking feature named App Pairs.

According to XDA-developers' Apr. 13 report, one of the new features of App Pairs is the ability to swap the position of each app by double-tapping the center.

Google Assistant can also be launched by holding the power button in the latest Android 12 build, and the widget picker added a new search widget to make it easier for users to scroll through the available widgets.

For tablets, the latest Android 12 build will add the new dual-panel home screen view, which allows the launcher to display two screens side-by-side.

The scrolling screenshot feature is also getting an upgrade after the leak reveals that the in-development expanded screenshot implementation opens up a separate activity to let users manually select part of the screenshot that needs to be captured.

Android 12 Confirmed Design Changes

The Android 12 build revealed the inclusion of automatically generated splash screens for every app and a new volume panel that has a thicker, rounded slider matching the accent color of the selected system theme.

(Photo : Deepanker Verma from Pexels)

The brightness slider was also beefed up on the latest build, which follows the same theme as the volume panel, according to Android Police's report.

The build had added a new setting called "Reduce Brightness," which implements a dark overlay on top of the screen to make the screen look dimmer.

Additional features confirmed on the Android 12 build include tweaks to the ripple, overscroll, app drawer, and charging animation.

Other features previously leaked such as the name of the latest Android 12 build have not yet been revealed.

Android 12 Privacy Features

The latest Android 12 build is putting the control back to its users, implementing additional prompts, such as the "show clipboard access" that shows a toast message whenever an app reads the clipboard.

Another significant change the build is bringing is giving the users the option to disable the location data collection that was running on previous builds 24/7. The feature will also let users choose if an app will be given access to either the device's approximate or precise location.

Lastly, the "bridged apps" page was added under the "Notification access" page, but the leak did not confirm what the feature is for.