Google launches Android 12 beta 4 with new user-friendly tools

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Google has released the fourth beta of its upcoming Android 12 operating system that offers several new consumer-focused capabilities for the developers to work on, including Game Mode, AppSearch, a new notification style for phone calls and others.

The Game Mode allows developers to optimise gameplay by prioritizing characteristics, such as performance or battery life based on users settings or game-specific configurations. 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," according to a Google update.

Furthermore, AppSearch supports native search features, like highly-efficient indexing and retrieval, multi-language support and relevancy ranking.

The fourth beta of Android 12 has now achieved 'Platform Stability,' which means changes impacting Android app developers are now finalised.

Android 12 revamps the existing Widgets API to improve the user and developer experience in the platform and launchers.

The new Android 12 beta 4 release is available on supported Pixel devices, and on devices from select partners including ASUS, OnePlus, OPPO and realme.

Android 12 apps can generate haptic feedback derived from an audio session using the phone's vibrator.

"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," Google said.

Android 12 also adds a new notification style for phone calls.

Using this template lets the app indicate the importance of active calls by displaying a prominent chip that shows the time of the call in the status bar; the user can tap this chip to return to their call.

"In Android 12, you can now enrich your app's notification experience by providing animated images in notifications. Also, your app can now enable users to send image messages when they reply to messages from the notification shade," said Google.