https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/02/google-announces-the-android-12-developer-preview/

Google is launching the first developer preview of Android 12 on Thursday. This is the beginning of a seven-month beta process that should end with a final release sometime around September. System images will be out today for the Pixel line (if these links are broken, check back later). Support is being cut for the Pixel 2 this year; for phones, the preview will only work for the Pixel 3/3a and up. There's also an "Android 12 preview for Android TV" available for the ADT-3 Developer Kit, which is interesting because commercial Android TV devices, like the "Google Chromecast with Google TV," still run Android 10.

So what's new? It's hard to take a full audit now since we're only working from a blog post with zero pictures and no documentation to read yet, but Google outlines a few interesting features. First, Google says it is "refreshing notification designs to make them more modern, easier to use, and more functional," which probably applies to the earlier leaks that already hit the Internet. The company also says it is "optimizing transitions and animations across the system to make them more smooth," which is something we'll investigate once we get some actual code.