Google released the first preliminary version of Android 12 Developer Preview. It is available for Pixel 3/3 XL, Pixel 3a / 3a XL, Pixel 4/4 XL, Pixel 4a / 4a 5G or Pixel 5. Android 12 includes many new features related to security, connectivity and more.
But if you are a regular user and interested in installing Android 12, then you should be aware of the risk of installing the previous developer version: your phone may not work properly after installation.
So, if you're willing to take the risk, install Android 12 Developer Preview on your Pixel phone.
Features of Android12
The new version of Android includes many new features and APIs for developers. Some of the best Android 12 features are listed below.
Improved privacy
- Restricted Netlink MAC address
- Modern behavior of SameSite cookies in WebView
- Safer handling of Intent.
Improved user interface
- Compatible multimedia transcoding: Videos recorded in HEVC and HDR formats will be automatically transcoded to AVC format.
- AVIF image support: Android 12 introduces a new AVIF image file format that can improve image quality compared to JPEG without increasing the file size.
- Sound effect with tactile feedback
- Multi-channel sound
Updating the messaging UI
Faster and more responsive messaging
WI-FI Aware (NAN) improvements
In addition, the blog post also gives the timeline of Android 12. According to the schedule, the stable version of Android 12 will be released in October 2021. We've posted the full Android 12 timeline below.
- Android 12 DP – February
- Developer Preview 2 - March
- Developer Preview 3 - April
- Android 12 Beta 1 – May
- Beta 1-2 – June and July
- Beta 4 – August
- Candidate meeting - September
- Stable - October
As we already reported, the first developer preview of Android 12 is available on Pixel 3/3 XL, Pixel 3a/3a XL, Pixel 4/4 XL, Pixel 4a/4a 5G or Pixel 5.
If you want to install Android 12 Developer Preview on your Pixel phone, then follow the instructions below to install it.
Prerequisites for installing Android12 Developer preview
- You must have a computer (Windows, macOS or Linux).
- Google Pixel compatible phone.
- Install the Android 12 Developer Preview Flash Tool.
- Install the Android SDK tools and update the USB drivers if you are using Windows.
- Download the first Android 12 Developer Preview OTA image for your phone.
- Connect the phone to the computer using a USB cable.
Steps for manual firmware Android 12 Developer preview
- Press and hold the volume down button and the power button at the same time to enter recovery mode.
- Look for "Apply Updates with ADB" and select it by pressing the Power button.
- Make sure it worked by typing "adb devices" (without the quotes) in a shell or command prompt. If ADB is installed and your phone is in the correct mode, you should see your phone ID and report an "unpublished" status.
- Run OTA via shell or command line using adb sideload your_file_name_here.zip,
where filename is the name of the OTA image you downloaded earlier. On some platforms, you will need to prepend adb commands with a "./" character for it to work correctly. - Stare anxiously at your phone as it slowly installs.
- Reboot when done.
After that, you will receive all future Android 12 updates as regular system updates.
