Android 12 (formerly known as Android S) is barely a few weeks away as Google will release its first-ever Android 12 Developer Preview 1 probably next month or so. Well, something interesting is coming up as the team behind Android Open Source Program stated that they are working on a new feature called “Hibernation” and it is likely to be included in the Android 12 as well.
Hibernation is a state that puts apps/services in a state of inactive/rest that pushes down the memory and energy footprint when the apps/services aren’t running. It is sort of how your Windows PC goes in hibernation where it doesn’t consume much battery and memory among other resources. The feature is still in its early stage of development and it is being said that the feature is likely going to make it to the upcoming Android 12. As said, the android 12 DP1 is likely to come out in February 2021.
Apparently, the code snippet found in the AOSP source code reveals that Google is working on the hibernation feature. According to this, if a single user puts an app on a multi-user device in hibernation, the cache will be cleared, power requirement will be reduced and the memory will be freed a bit.
According to the report, it is to be seen how the hibernation feature will work on a single user setup. As GSMArena puts it, the feature is unlikely to uninstall an app but rather push it in a hibernate state saving on space and memory as well. Users can retrieve the app simply by pulling off the plug on its hibernation. The actual working of the feature is still disputed/reported and thus, we will have to wait for the updates to arrive to confirm.
This just confirms that the Android 12 isn’t that far. We will get to see the first developer preview next month followed by a few more developer previews and beta versions before the stable version isn’t released around August or September 2021 as per the usual timeline.
