Google LLC today announced the third Beta of Android 12 for developers that includes the finalized version of its application programming interfaces and the official software development kit.

This release also included a number of feature enhancements such as scrolling screenshots, privacy indicator APIs, on-device search enhancements, enhanced auto-rotate and new Game Mode APIs.

The next milestone for Android 12 will be platform stability in Beta 4 in which all behaviors will be finalized. The finalized API and official SDK in this version mean that developers can start testing their apps ahead of Beta 4 next month.

What to expect in Beta 3

With “Scrolling screenshots” users will be able more easily to capture content that scrolls off the screen. Starting in Beta 3, when users capture a screenshot, they will now see a “Capture more” button to extend the screenshot to the full content and they can adjust the crop.

Beta 3 now has platform support for AppSearch, a new high-performance on-device search engine. With AppSearch, apps can search structured data and search built-in full-text search capabilities. AppSearch provides a powerful way for apps to access native features like indexing and retrieval, multi-language support and relevancy ranking.

Camera and microphone privacy management toggles are now configurable by enterprise administrators. These toggles were added in Beta 2 in order to allow users to lock out camera and microphone for all apps at their discretion, enabling them full control over apps.

In order to make auto-rotate faster and better than before, Beta 3 now uses the front-facing camera with face detection to more quickly detect when to rotate the screen. That could be a boon to people who are using their devices when lying down on a couch or in bed. This feature is available on Pixel 4 and later Pixel devices.

A number of Game Mode APIs will enable developers to optimize their games for player experience depending on their preferences. For example, players can use an upcoming game dashboard to set a performance profile for endurance – say, to stretch battery life for a long commute – or performance mode to get high frame rates and maximum graphics.

Another important feature revealed by Google is Play as you Download, which allows players to begin playing a game even as game assets are being downloaded in the background. That allows games with larger install sizes to let players get into the game and start playing even before the entire game is done installing.

Final APIs, SDK and app compatibility

With the release of Beta 3, the Google Android team has worked to finalize the Android APIs, and today they’ve been released along with the official SDK. With Beta 4, full Platform Stability will finalize all app-facing system behaviors.

That means that now is a good time for developers to jump in and start getting their app compatibility testing completed and release a fully compatible version of their app or library.

Complete details on the Android 12 Beta are available on the Android 12 developer site.

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