Android 12 introduces great new features and APIs for developers. The sections below help you learn about features for your apps and get started with the related APIs.
For a detailed list of new, modified, and removed APIs, read the API diff report. For details on new APIs visit the Android API reference — new APIs are highlighted for visibility. Also, to learn about areas where platform changes may affect your apps, be sure to check out Android 12 behavior changes for apps that target Android 12 and for all apps.
User experience
Material You
Android 12 introduces a new design language called Material You, helping you to build more personalized, beautiful apps. To bring all of the latest Material Design 3 updates into your apps, try an alpha version of Material Design Components.
Widgets improvements
Android 12 revamps the existing Widgets API to improve the user and developer experience in the platform and launchers. We've created a guide to help you ensure your widget is compatible with Android 12 and to refresh it with new features.
See Android 12 widgets improvements for more information.
Rich content insertion
Android 12 introduces a new unified API that lets your app receive rich content from any available source: clipboard, keyboard, or drag and drop.
For more information, see Receive rich content.
App splash screens API
Android 12 introduces a new app launch animation for all apps that includes an into-app motion from the point of launch, a splash screen showing the app icon, and a transition to the app itself. See the splash screens developer guide for more details.
Rounded corner APIs
Android 12 introduces RoundedCorner
and WindowInsets.getRoundedCorner(int
position),
which provide the radius and center point for rounded corners.
For more information, see Rounded corners.
Rich haptic experiences
Android 12 expands the tools for creating informative haptic feedback for UI events, immersive and delightful effects for gaming, and attentional haptics for productivity.
Actuator effects
Android 12 adds expressive effects like low tick that take advantage of the broader frequency bandwidth of the latest actuators. Game developers can now access multiple, different actuators independently in game controllers to deliver the same effect synchronously or different haptic effects on multiple actuators. For developers, we recommend using the constants and primitives as building blocks for rich haptic effects - constants to enhance UI events and haptic composer to sequence primitives for more complex effects. These APIs are available to try on Pixel 4 devices, and we're continuing to work with our device-maker partners to bring the latest in haptics support to users across the ecosystem.
Audio-coupled haptic effects
Android 12 apps can generate haptic feedback derived from an audio session using the phone's vibrator. This provides an opportunity for more immersive game and audio experiences. For example, haptic-enhanced ringtones can help identify callers, or a driving game could simulate the feeling of rough terrain.
See the HapticGenerator
reference documentation for more information.
AppSearch
Android 12 introduces AppSearch, a high-performance on-device search engine, as a system service. AppSearch allows applications to index structured data and search over it with built-in full-text search capabilities. Furthermore, AppSearch supports native search features, like highly-efficient indexing and retrieval, multi-language support, and relevancy ranking.
AppSearch comes in two flavors: a local index for your application to use that’s compatible with older versions of Android, or a central index maintained for the entire system in Android 12. Using the central index, your application can allow its data to be displayed on system UI surfaces by the system’s pre-installed intelligence component. Exactly which data gets displayed on system UI surfaces is dependent on the OEM. Additionally, your application can securely share data with other applications, to allow them to search over that data as well.
Learn more about AppSearch in the developer guide, and begin using it with the AppSearch Jetpack library, which provides a developer-friendly API surface as well as annotation processor support.
Game Mode
The Game Mode API and Game Mode interventions allow you to optimize gameplay by prioritizing characteristics, such as performance or battery life based on users settings or game specific configurations.
For more information, see