Android Police give us a first look at the new tool that Android 12 will bring. The API for this has been announced earlier this year, but now we’re starting to see its implementation. Google refers to this feature as “Reconfigure button”.
Android 12’s widget editing tool will make things easy for developers
So, what is it? Well, it’s a floating action button, which will appear when you place, move, or resize a widget (shown below). Now, some of you may say this is not new. Well, technically it is, as this time around it’s baked into the system.
Some widgets, well, many of them, allowed you to edit them, their size, but many did not. If they did, those were custom implementations that third-party developers included. The Reconfigure API will make things a lot easier for developers. The source says that it spotted the Reconfigure FAB on the new Material You widget for Google Drive. Interestingly enough, the same is not the case for Google Keep’s new widgets. Whatever the case may be, the Reconfigure API is available in Android 12, and developers will be able to take advantage of it. So, if you do have some apps that come with non-editable widgets, that will likely change in Android 12. Android 12 has been around for a while now, but only in Developer Preview and Beta forms. The latest Beta build got released recently, and the stable build is coming early next month.
Android 12 stable build is likely coming on October 5
Google hasn’t officially confirmed the release date for Android 12, but it will likely start rolling out on October 5. That is the date that was mentioned in the AOSP, and that’s likely when it will start rolling out to Pixel smartphones. The Google Pixel 6 and 6 Pro will be the first phones to ship with it out of the box. Those two phones are rumored to launch on October 19, by the way.
