New Android 12 app installation animation seems very familiar
This is not a ground-breaking feature by any means, it’s just a simple animation. It gives you a visual look at the status of an app as it is being downloaded and installed, as a progress bar around an app icon.
This new feature/animation is called the Android 12 install icons signifier. It doesn’t function identically to the one on iOS, but it works in a similar way, and it does seem that’s where Google got the inspiration for this. When the installation finishes, the icon appears in an open space on your phone’s home screen. Now, based on the report by Phone Arena, Mishaal Rahman believes that this new animation ties to Google’s “play as you downloaded” feature.
It could be connected to “play as you downloaded”
What is “play as you downloaded”? Well, that is a feature Google announced last summer. It essentially allows you to start playing a game even while you’re downloading it. Only a handful of games support that feature at this point, though. Based on what Mishaal Rahman said, only 14 games support this feature at this point. He seems to believe the same feature is coming for apps as well, which is why Google made this change. Google did not confirm this just yet, so we’ll have to wait in order to see if it’s true or not. The animation itself does look quite good, even if there isn’t a hidden meaning behind this change. Android 12 arrived as the biggest visual overhaul of Android in years, and Google seems to be pushing more such changes as time goes by. Android 13 Developer Preview 1 already landed, though it seems like Android 13 be making any significant UI changes. It’s too early to tell at this point, but that’s what’s expected.
