Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Mobile

You probably won’t get Android 12’s coolest feature when it rolls out

By

With Android 12, Google debuted a whole new design language for the operating system. “Instead of Google Blue, we imagined Material You,” the company said at Google I/O 2021. For a whole lot of Android 12 upgraders though, the Google blues is exactly what they’re going to get when Android 12 hits.

This week, Samsung finally announced and distributed the beta for One UI 4, its take on Android 12. Shortly after, Oppo announced ColorOS 12, its own spin on Android 12. Alongside Nokia’s own Android 12 Beta, these releases tell us what to expect (and what not to expect) from Android 12 when it hits the vast majority of Android phones as it rolls out through the next year.

Recommended Videos

Just don’t expect Material You — at all. Google may have touted it as a headlining feature of Android 12, but it’s not going to be a feature for the majority of users. One UI 4 handles the same as One UI 3, and Color OS 12 continues Oppo’s iOS-inspired take on Android. This was always to be expected.

Google didn’t hide the fact that Material You would be coming first to Pixels this fall, though it wasn’t clear whether that was because Pixels would be the very first phones to get Android 12, or whether Material You would be limited to Pixels. As of now, it seems to be the latter, though it could be a timed exclusive.

You’ll still find the more substantive changes made in Android 12 on other phones. Google’s added new indicators for when your microphone and camera are being engaged to prevent apps from accessing them surreptitiously. A detailed permissions manager will let you see which apps access your system sensors and how often. There are also mildly redesigned notifications, elements of which are being incorporated into interpretations from Samsung and Oppo. Samsung is keeping its own quick settings space, but the notification shade skews toward Google’s. Android One phones like Nokia’s X20 share a similar user interface to Google’s, but without all the dynamic color and customizability tweaks that the larger company had incorporated.

Android phone and tablet makers have coalesced around a distinct collection of elements that mark them out as Android, while not being exactly the same. While bits and pieces of what Google has planned for Android 12 will still make their way down, the most visually distinct element will not. Google has updated many of its apps to Material You on Android 12, but most people will only see Google Blue when they open these apps. In the meantime, if you want pure Material You, you’ll need to buy a Pixel.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Michael Allison
Michael Allison
Mobile News Writer
A UK-based tech journalist for Digital Trends, helping keep track and make sense of the fast-paced world of tech with a…
An Android phone you haven’t heard of just won the charging game
Infinix Note 40 Pro Plus with MagSafe green-colored compatible vegan leather case kept on a table.

Infinix is an underdog phone brand that's slowly gaining momentum in developing nations. It offers a variety of low-spec and midrange phones with premium designs and features at astoundingly low prices. That continues with the newest midrange series, the Infinix Note 40, which packs some unusual perks, most notably frictionless charging.

The series' top-of-the-line Note 40 Pro+ is crammed with features you wouldn't otherwise find on other sub-$300 phones. Among them is a 120Hz curved AMOLED display with an in-display fingerprint scanner, built-in AI features, dual speakers tuned by JBL, a super-slim profile with a vegan leather finish and gold accents, and wildly fast 100-watt wired charging.

Read more
These are the best Android 15 features you need to know about
Android 15 logo on a Google Pixel 8.

Android 15 has entered its latter leg of testing among developers, and in the coming months, a beta build will finally be released for the masses. So far, across the two Developer Preview builds that Google has released, we’ve encountered a handful of new features that will make life easier for smartphone users in meaningful ways.

Among them is a notification cooldown system that shields you from a barrage of audio alerts from your apps. Google has already detailed the changelog to a healthy extent, but not all new tricks have been implemented yet. But there’s still enough to unpack in Android 15, and some of those notable additions are detailed below:
Partial screen sharing

Read more
When is my phone getting Android 14? Here’s everything we know
Android 14 logo on the Google Pixel 8 Pro.

Android 14 is out now, and as usual, the first to get it was Google's own Pixel phone family. Not to be undone, Samsung pushed out its version of Android 14 — One UI 6 — after a relatively short beta period and has seemingly now completed its Android 14 rollout. Nothing, the new phone company on the block, has done the same. Now, we're just waiting for more news from Motorola, who has become the stick in the mud holding everyone up.

If you're rocking an Android phone that is still stuck on an old build, here's everything we know about official Android 14 rollout plans for all major brands available in the U.S. market. We recommend using your device's Find on page function to pinpoint your device on this list.

Read more