With the release of Android 12 Beta 2, one of the first things you’ll notice is a large notification that explains that Android-friendly notifications are being changed. Going forward, Android will have ‘better notifications’ instead. The bundle description is a bit underwhelming and there are no noticeable changes in the notification behavior. Because it’s basically the same thing. Google is simply changing the name and transferring control.
When I first saw notifications, I spent some time digging into these improved notification changes, but couldn’t find any adjustments to the user-facing behavior. Control some app notification integration using the “Suggested actions, replies and more” feature in Settings. 2020 release (this also ties in with the Adaptive Notifications setting in Apps & Notifications -> Special App Access, and has moved to Android 12 as well).
Adaptive notifications did that for me..
Adaptive notification control Swallow Including automatic notification priority sorting in Android Q beta 4 (and disappearing and then developer options in later Android versions) and Notification Smart Actions allowing apps to add actions directly to notifications. App action. This is a feature that provides shortcuts for things like opening a URL sent to you or setting a reminder/event based on the content of a notification.
In short, I knew what was controlling the old features and what they did, and I knew things changed in settings with the Android 12 beta 2 name change, but it wasn’t really possible. See Everything else about how notifications work. Because in reality there is nothing.
In addition to the name change, Google considers this move from adaptive notifications to “better notifications” to transfer a related functionality from the Android system itself: the device personalization service. There is no change in function or feature. For now, we’re doing everything we did before in terms of notification behavior, integration and actions, all of which are still on-device and respect privacy.
Device Personalization mainline module, but since it’s an app that controls many Android features and the Pixel features live captions now playing, the Pixel’s screen focus on keyboard text suggestions and a bunch of different stuff. Now that adaptive/enhanced notifications are part of the app and not the Android system itself, Google can update it from the Play Store.
If your phone keeps getting a slightly confusing notification when it gets the Android 12 update, you know what it is. All the same features and integrations are still there, and you can do the same powerful things with your notifications. It has the ability to upgrade directly from the Play Store with a new name in the settings.