Those using Android 12 Beta 4 in landscape orientation are looking at a lot more space and a lot less notification content today. As part of the new release, Google seems to have adjusted padding to the left and right of items in the notification shade while in landscape — a potential ergonomic and consistency boon, but it might upset those that actually liked the extra content.
With Beta 4 on our Pixel devices, we’re now seeing notifications take up about half the horizontal space of the screen, while previously the feed took up the entire width of the display:
Left: Beta 3. Right: Beta 4
There’s an argument to be made in reducing the width of the feed to ease the amount of side-to-side ocular movement in reading a notification’s contents, and it better matches what notification content looks like in portrait mode for added consistency, but some may see going to this extent as taking it too far.
Less at a glance.
For all we know, there could even be some other motive at work, or this could be a bug that we’ll see reverted in the next release.
In my opinion, though, this ain’t a way to use a smartphone for long.
