Google’s latest mobile operating system is here, for developers at least.
Google just released the first developer beta of Android 12, the search giant’s next major update to its mobile operating system. The initial release is for developers to learn more about under-the-hood changes and make adjustments to their apps. Google hasn’t announced any consumer-facing changes yet, and after a few minutes with the beta installed, we can’t find anything drastically different. We’ll definitely need to spend more time with it. With the release of Android 10 in 2019, Google announced it was no longer going to use dessert names for the yearly release of an Android update. Last year, Google released Android 11. So, by my count, that puts this year’s release at Android 12, a fact confirmed by Google when it announced the update. That said, Google still uses sweets as its internal code names for upcoming releases, and thanks to XDA Developers, which has shared a ton of information about the OS update, we have a good idea that internally it’s being called « Snow Cone. » The development process for each new version of Android is lengthy, with a developer beta usually being released early in the year. In 2020, Google released the first developer beta of Android 11 on Feb.19. Nearly a year to the day later, Google announced Android 12 on Feb.18. The public beta, which allows anyone with a compatible Android phone like a Google Pixel or OnePlus phone, can sign up and help Google test the next version of Android.
