You know what that means—more than a year has passed since Google released Android 11. Android 12 is now available for Pixels that Google still supports. Despite continuing with the “boring” dessert-less naming scheme, the company has packed quite a lot of new stuff into this iteration of its mobile operating system, more than we’ve been used to lately, so we took a deep dive and explored what’s new in Android 12, including features that are live on Pixels and may eventually make it to other devices running Google’s OS.

Android 12’s developer preview builds were followed by public betas, and now it’s time for the “final” release. Android 12’s theme engine dynamically adjusts all UI elements based on the wallpaper you choose, introducing a new paradigm for user interface design.

We’ll start this review with auto-customization. But that’s not all—Google added more to the release. Animations are smoother, motion on screen is smoother, there’s a new Privacy Dashboard, indicators for when apps are accessing the mic or camera, the ability to share approximate location information only, support for scrolling screenshots, new conversation widgets, and of course the notification shade has been redesigned, which is now a meme since every Android release does it. However, the Quick Settings tiles have been heavily redesigned this time.

As always, other Android device makers can choose to adopt all or a subset of the new features we’re discussing in this review (or anything in between). We’re curious to see what’s new in the latest OS, but we don’t know how many of these things will launch on non-Google handsets. This has always been the case with Android updates, so we’re letting you know.

As usual, Android skins that stay close to stock will eventually add most of these features, while heavy ones that deviate from Google are least likely to do so. However, once Android 12 updates start rolling out, everyone should get the under-the-hood improvements.