ISSUE 88 • ANDROID ADVISOR 27Smart auto-rotate
Here’s a welcome new feature: Google
is reportedly adding some AI smarts
to Android’s auto-rotate, in an overdue
update to a feature that’s currently only
based on your phone’s gyroscope and
accelerometer. 9to5Google reports that
the feature will use the phone’s selfie
camera to detect which way your face
is relative to the phone and rotate – or
not – correspondingly. The site does
however warn that it’s possible this will
be a Pixel-exclusive feature, rather than
opening up to all Android devices.
User access to Android’s
hidden recycle bin/trash
A recycle bin of sorts has actually existed
within Google’s mobile OS since Android
11; designed to temporarily hold onto
app files so that an app has a window
of time to request to retrieve them on
behalf of the user. For the time being,
this temporary holding area remains
hidden from end-users.
XDA Developers has unearthed
signs that an option may soon appear
in the Storage subsection of Android’s
Settings menu, letting users manually
empty this trash can to free up device
space. This runs in parallel to signs that
a forthcoming update to the Files by
Google app will let users both delete
and restore files from within the app. It’s
unclear at this stage whether a restore
option will also be present in Android
12’s updated storage settings.Automatic app UI translation
Another discovery after XDA Developers
got its hands on an unreleased Android
12 build (in other words, not a developer
preview), uncovered references in the
framework code that allude to a new
native translation service that would
serve to translate in-line text within
applications from one language to
another. This would allow a developer’s
app to reach a far wider audience
without the need to pay for or source
translation services for versions that
aren’t in the app’s native language.Screenshots won’t auto-upload
to cloud photo storage
Phones from the likes of Samsung,
Xiaomi, Oppo and Realme throw
screenshots into the same ‘DCIM’
directory as photos taken with your
phone’s camera (rather than ‘Pictures
> Screenshots’, as most other Android
phones do); meaning there’s a greater
chance of your photo backup service
of choice pulling them up to the cloud
along with your snaps.
A trusted source has apparently
supplied XDA Developers with a
‘preliminary revision of the Compatibility