The beauty of Android is its customizability and its open-source nature. As a consequence, we've seen a slew of bespoke skins and user interfaces from companies throughout the years. There's Xiaomi's MIUI, OnePlus' OxygenOS, Samsung's One UI, OPPO's ColorOS, and so on. OEMs prefer to update their custom UI with new Google updates as well as some smart additions with each new Android release.

With the release of Android 12, companies are striving to update their custom skins to use the most recent version of Android as the foundation. This article will elaborate on the features and updates that have come with the new OPPO ColorOS 12.

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All the Aspects of OPPO ColorOS 12

ColorOS is arguably the most improved custom user interface in recent years. OPPO has taken customer input seriously over past years and has corrected all of the minor issues encountered with the software. Given how well-liked OxygenOS was, it's more essential than ever for the skin to deliver on all fronts now as the OxygenOS codebase has been integrated with ColorOS. 

Key Features of OPPO ColorOS 12

Here are some tweaks and new introductions ColorOS 12 provides:

UI Tweaks and Design

Material UI and Dynamic Colors are significant design changes in Android 12, but they seem to be restricted to the Pixel series exclusively. ColorOS 12 introduces several small design and UI modifications that aren't immediately noticeable. Text in certain applications, such as Contacts, has been made bolder with an updated foundation, resulting in a cleaner appearance.

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The UI of the phone remains much the same as it was on ColorOS 11. The Settings menu has been updated to appear more contemporary. The many choices under Settings are now simpler to discover and move through.

The last UI update is the ability to choose between three kinds of Dark Mode options: Enhanced, Gentle and Medium. The Enhanced option produces a pitch-black backdrop that is excellent for OLED screens, while the Medium and Gentle settings provide a somewhat grey background.

Wallpaper-based System

As previously said, one of the most important aspects of Android 12 is Material Theming, which can alter the System theme depending on the wallpaper color. On ColorOS 12, OPPO has added a similar function in which users may choose a theme based on the color dominance on the wallpaper. While this isn't as smooth as Android 12's default approach, it's certainly a welcome addition. It surely does not work with Google's Material apps.

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Always-on Display: Portrait Silhouette

This functionality was originally seen on OxygenOS for OnePlus smartphones, and it has now found its way to ColorOS 12 for OPPO phones. The portrait silhouette function, also known as Canvas AOD, essentially outlines the primary subject in a portrait picture and produces a sketch appearance that can subsequently be utilized as an Always-on Display image. It's a neat method to change the appearance of a smartphone while the display is turned off.

Easter Egg

Navigating to Settings > About Phone > Android Version and pressing on it pulls up the Android 12 Easter egg with the fresh-looking clock widget. When people set the clock-hands to 12 o'clock, they'll be taken to the new Android 12 interface.

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Screen Translate

ColorOS has had a sidebar on the display's edge for quite some time. The sidebar is where users will find commonly used applications and shortcuts that they may access from any screen. On ColorOS 12, a new option named Screen Translate has been added to the sidebar.

Screen Translate, as the name implies, is a one-click solution for translating the whole contents of a website they're viewing. Users can select this option to have the whole page translated after opening any page they wish to convert to a different language. This tool, which interacts with Google Lens, provides a simple method to translate text.

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Background Stream

Another new function has been added to the sidebar. Background Stream activates a clever function on their phone that allows them to keep playing anything in the background even while they're not on the screen. Like they may want to listen to songs on YouTube but they don't want it to end when they close the app or switch off the device. Ideally, people need a YouTube Premium membership to accomplish this, but Background Stream on ColorOS 12 can do it with the touch of a button.

Refurbished Phone Manager

On ColorOS 12, the Phone Manager app is used to simplify a phone's storage, remove unneeded applications and files, manage app permissions, and so on. It includes a list of features that are now appropriately separated into various menus, making it simpler for users to locate the functions they need.

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Privacy Dashboard

This is one of the standout features of the latest Android 12, and OPPO has fortunately chosen to incorporate it in ColorOS 12 as well. The Privacy Dashboard shows all of the permissions that applications on a phone utilize, as well as when they were last used. Users can manage whether or not specific applications may use location, microphone, camera, or any other permission from this page.

Location Sharing Approximate

Approximate spot sharing is another key privacy-related feature on Android 12, and now on ColorOS 12. When an app asks users to share their location, they may opt to give the precise position or an estimated location if they don't trust the app or don't want to disclose their specific location with an app that doesn't actually need it.

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Conclusion

With hundreds of models set to upgrade to OPPO ColorOS 12, it will reach around 150 million users worldwide, making it one of the most ambitious updates in OPPO's history. Other interesting improvements include OPPO finally enabling customers to unlock their smartphones' bootloaders by obtaining an unlock code.

OPPO is demonstrating with ColorOS 12 that it can offer an interface aligned with the finest Android phones. The style is consistent, there are many helpful improvements, and users don't lose out on any of the features released by Google in Android 12.

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