Windows for smartphones may be dead and gone, but its spirit haunts Android: Microsoft leveraged Android 12L’s advanced theme system to make the interface more like the fluent UI used on Windows 11. This comes as a common update for Microsoft Surface Duo and Surface Duo 2.
The shadow of notifications, the Settings screen, and the activity feed in Microsoft’s launcher have been redesigned to resemble their Windows counterparts. This means that UI icons, colors and controls have been unified with the Windows style. Many areas of the interface also have blur, which is also part of the Windows design language.
The new software includes the wallpapers available on Windows and offers matching accent color options to complete the look:
Windows wallpapers come to Surface Duo
Surface Slim Pen 2 (which is supported on Duo 2) now has similar functionality to Surface PCs – you can tap the button at the top to bring up a quick launch bar with shortcuts for relevant apps.
Microsoft Teams has also received a couple of updates – you can now transfer a Teams meeting via the Now widget, plus performance and battery usage have been improved by offloading the heavy work on hardware acceleration.
In addition, the new chat widgets allow you to insert certain chats on the home screen. Another new widget shows OneDrive photos.
Also included are all the usual Android 12L enhancements, including status bar indicators for the camera and microphone, plus a privacy tracker that keeps a list of apps that have used the camera or microphone or accessed the your position in the last 24 hours.
To install Android 12L Surface Duo owners are looking for a 2.6GB download, Duo 2 users will download 3.2GB instead. The updates also include the October security patch. Go to System> System Update to see if the phased rollout has reached your unit.
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