The Surface Duo phones may skip Android 12 in lieu of Android 12L
The Surface Duo phones were some of the most interesting-looking devices, and they had a hard focus on productivity. Function and form met in a very pleasing way with these phones, as they had two screens to work with. The Duos had a lot of potential on the hardware front, but they lagged when it came to software. They schlepped Android onto the devices without proper optimization, and that made for a bad time. It’s clear that software was not a focus for Microsoft; however, that seems to have changed. According to the source, Microsoft may be focusing on software more than hardware this year. Software has always been the Achilles heel of these phones. The Surface Duo launched with Windows 10, and it only got the update to Android 11 after a year. Meanwhile, the Duo 2 launched with Android 11 and we’re waiting on it to be updated to Android 12. Well, it seems that Microsoft has some good news for current Surface Duo and Duo 2 owners. Microsoft may be skipping Android 12 and going straight to Android 12L. This is good news, as the Android software was not playing well with the radical form factor of the Surface Duo phones. There were a bunch of bugs and glitches with the software that could be chalked up to poor optimization.
Android 12L should help
The jump to Android 12L could be really auspicious for the phones because this version of Android is optimized for large-screen devices. This includes both tablets and foldables. There are several changes to the software that makes it a better fit for bigger devices from the notification shade revamp to the app dock on the bottom. We’ve seen some of the changes to ourselves, but there are also optimizations under the hood that will help the software perform better on larger screen devices. It’s already in the beta stage on the Lenovo P12 Pro tablet along with Pixel devices. We expect it to launch within the next couple of months, so the ball will be in Microsoft’s court once it does. Hopefully, the company will update its Duo phones to Android 12L soon.
