Android has been criticized several times for not being designed to work on large screen devices such as tablets as compared to Apple’s iOS before it became forked into iPad OS for iPads. While Google has been tuning Android to support foldables, today’s announcement of Android 12L marks the tech giant’s major stride towards designing Android for large screen devices.
Android 12L was announced today at the Android Developer Summit as a “feature drop” that brings an optimized user interface for large screen devices such as tablets, foldable, and Chrome OS devices. Google says it has refined the UI to make Android more beautiful and easier to use on screens larger than 600sp.
Below are some of the visual changes that Android 12L brings:
- A Google search bar at the top
- A six-button power menu that includes bug report and screenshot
- Two-column lockscreen
- A dual-pane interface for the settings menu
- A redesigned overview interface that shows the current app in almost full-screen while other apps are smaller
- Automatic enabling of all apps to enter split-screen mode even if the apps are not resizeable
- Ability for manufacturers to easily customize letterboxing
- A taskbar for large screen devices to make app switching seamless
Google has said that Android 12L will be released early next year with the next wave of Android 12 tablets and foldables. However, it will be available today for developers while a developer preview will be released soon for the Lenovo P12 Pro. A beta version will also be released for Pixel phones in December.
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