After about eight months of Android betas, Android 12 officially rolled out to the Android Open Source Project on October 4, then arrived on eligible Pixel phones a few weeks later. But the Android 12 saga is far from over. Samsung, OnePlus, and other smartphone makers are hard at work rolling out stable Android 12 releases to their most recent phones, and Google itself is developing a new Android 12L OS, with betas planned through at least February 2022.

Pixel owners will want to know the top Android 12 tips and tricks for their new Android 12 phones. Other Android users are wondering when their phones will get Android 12, and how their specific OS will differ from "stock" Android 12. Android tablet and foldable owners will be wondering how Android 12L will affect their experience. Maybe you're just curious how Material You works.

Whatever you need to know, we're here to help solve all of your Android 12 bugs or answer your questions on Android 12 features.

Android 12: When is my phone getting it?

As of October 19, Android 12 is available on Pixels, from the Pixel 3 through the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. Unlike Android launches of the past, 12 has Pixel-exclusive software features that took extra time to perfect, leading to a delay beyond the initial October 4 code launch.

As of early 2022, other manufacturers have begun to release their unique Android 12 skins on their flagship phones and betas on their older phones. Despite the massive scope of Android 12's changes, which made this such a time-consuming OS to develop, most companies are staying mostly on schedule with their updates.

Samsung leads the pack with One UI 4 updates. It has updated the S21, S20, Note 20, Z Fold and Flip, A52, and S10 series in various territories as of early January, jumping well ahead of its promised update roadmap.

With OnePlus, it built OxygenOS 12 off of its parent company's ColorOS 12 software, which should ideally help with faster updates. However, while it has released Android 12 for the OnePlus 9, it did have to roll the update back due to serious bugs before delivering a more stable release in early January. No other phones have received it yet, except for the OnePlus 8 closed beta.

As for OPPO, it has released stable Android 12 to the Find X3 Pro, Find X2 (Pro), and Reno6 (Pro/5G) in specific regions; globally, only the Find X3 Pro has started to receive it. But generally speaking, the OEM is updating on schedule.

Xiaomi recently released a global MIUI 13 update schedule. According to Gizmochina, the various variants of the Xiaomi Mi 11, Redmi 10, and Redmi Note 10 should also receive Android 12 in Q1 2021.

The Android 12-based Realme UI 3.0 has been officially announced as well. The company rolled out an "early access update" to the Realme GT in October, followed by the Realme GT Master Edition, GT Neo 2 5G, X7 Max, and Realme 8 Pro phones in December. Other eligible phones will receive it throughout the first half of 2022.

Fans of ASUS and gaming phones shouldn't have too long to wait, depending on which model you own. ASUS delivered Android 12 to the Zenfone 8 right at the end of 2021, just barely matching its promised Android 12 roadmap. From there, the ROG Phone 5 and 5s will receive it sometime in the first three months of 2022, followed by the ROG Phone 3 and ZenFone 7 in the first half of the year.

Nokia has begun to release updates on a few recent phones, like the X20, X10, and G50. But we haven't seen an official update roadmap as of yet. Meanwhile, Motorola recently released its update roadmap but won't begin updating any of its phones until February 2022.

For more general info on release schedules, check out our guide on when your phone will get Android 12.

Android 12: What is Material You, and is it coming to non-Pixel phones?

Google calls its new visual paradigm Material You. The key highlight here is customization. Google is making it easier than ever to personalize your phone to your tastes, without needing an Android launcher to do so.

The Material You color extraction tool picks colors straight from your phone's wallpaper and applies them throughout your UI. So your notification shade, lock screen, widgets, volume controls, and other elements take on a custom theme that'll change every time your wallpaper does. You can also customize your phone theme manually if you prefer.

Another new feature is themed icons. These convert the icons to a stylized design that incorporates your color theme. Not every app has its own Material You-themed icon, so there's a stark contrast between the two. You may want to make your own Material You adaptive icon pack with Icon Pack Studio instead.

The question on most people's minds is, which phones will receive Material You aside from Pixels? That's still up for debate. You can expect the overall design elements of Android 12 to appear on operating systems that tend to be more "stock" than others, such as Nokia and Motorola. But others will stick to their own design languages or form more of a hybrid UI, cherry-picking aspects of Android 12 to mesh with their own design.

Samsung is a great example of this. Samsung added a Color Theme tool that lets you automatically change the UI color based on your wallpaper, using Google's theming system to great effect. Buttons, icons, and sliders will take on those colors; but Samsung made the color effect more subtle than Google did with its Pixels. And it has different design styles for specific elements like widgets. It's still a Samsung UI despite Google's heavy influence.

In the case of OnePlus, OxygenOS 12's design and code is heavily dependant on ColorOS 12, which itself borrows none of its design from Material You. OPPO didn't have access to Google's coding, so it made its own code for changing UI colors based on your phone's background. And it kept much the same design as ColorOS 11, only subtly incorporating Android 12 design changes to avoid upsetting its users.

We're unclear if other operating systems will have access to the color extractor code (like Samsung did) for their Android 12 skins. Leaked Android 12L code suggested that release would open-source its Material You theming system. Given that 12L has an expected release date in spring 2022, automatic color extraction may not appear on other phones before then; and unless these companies plan to push out their own mid-year updates — which seems unlikely — this aspect of Material You might not appear more widely until Android 13.