Everything indicates that Google will unveil its Android 12 update in September this year. The new update will come first for the Pixel smartphones, the other part of Android devices may need to wait until the next year for this update. Android 12 is the biggest update in terms of features and visual changes since the Android 9 Pie arrival. The upgrade brings a whole new UI and a bunch of new features. The list of features includes a One-Handed Mode, Wallpapers that change the Accent colors of the whole system, rollable screenshots, and many other features. Recently, Gooogle deployed Android 12 beta 3, and alongside it the first Android TV 12 beta. The search giant has listed some of the features of its next update for TVs. Apparently, Android TV 12 will be the biggest update ever.
Google is enhancing Android 12 TV in a bid to become the number one choice for companies launching smart TVs. The fact is that it really has the potential to be a major operating system in the market of smart TVs. Just like on smartphones, the search giant provides the software and the solutions and a company just needs to take care of the hardware.
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Android TV 12 coming with 4K UI rendering, Dynamic Refresh rate, and more
Apparently, Android TV 12 will have a native 4K UI rendering. Previous versions of Android TV have supported 4K content playback, however, the UI was rendered below this resolution. In fact, previous versions had the UI rendering set at 1080p resolution with upscaling to 4K resolution. The upgraded feature will improve the screen interface and make visuals sharper.
Another feature coming to Android TVs is dynamic refresh rate switching. Therefore app developers can integrate the feature to seamlessly switch between frame rates. Therefore the TV can dynamically switch across different refresh rates always that necessary. This feature has been particularly useful on smartphones due to the benefits it brings to battery life.
In addition to these features, the new Android beta update introduces “Tunnel Mode”. According to Google, this feature will make it “easier for app developers to support consistent and efficient playback across devices by reducing media processing overhead in the Android Framework”. Furthermore, two new global privacy settings are now available. These features allow the user to easily toggle access to the microphone or camera. When those toggles are disabled, apps will be unable to access microphone audio and camera video. This is similar to the solution revealed by the camera during its I/O conference.
Android TV 12 looks promising and we’re excited to see it on the next smart TVs. Now the question that remains is if companies will update their smart TVs to run the latest version and how easy the process will be.