Android 12L is officially called “Android 12.1” and is now rolling out to Pixel phones.

The tablet-focused release of Android 12L from Google is hitting production devices today as “Android 12.1 “. Google’s tablet update will debut in a rather clumsy fashion, with no actual tablet hardware. Google says tablet hardware will arrive “later this year”and Samsung, Lenovo and Microsoft are planning foldable devices and tablets with the new OS.

We’re getting Pixel phone releases for the Pixel 3a, Pixel 4, Pixel 4a, Pixel 5, and Pixel 5a today. The Pixel 6 is once again not receiving the update at the same time as other devices, although Google tells 9to5Google that an update for the Pixel 6 will arrive later this month. Because nearly all of Android 12L’s features are tablet-specific, the release doesn’t do much for phones.

Highlights of Android 12.1 include a new taskbar UI for tablets, a dual-pane UI for the notification bar and system settings, and a new view of recent apps for large screens. For normal-sized screens, you get the fewest tweaks, like the ability to turn off the big clock on Android 12’s lock screen, and a new UI for quick wallpaper selection.

If Google wants to get back into the tablet market, a few tweaks at the OS level are a good start. But if the search giant really wants to succeed, it needs to update its apps to support dual-pane tablet interfaces. Google has previously held a coordinated company-wide effort to release certain versions of Android. When the new Material You design guide was released with Android 12, Google was ready for the first update for Gmail, Chrome, Play Store, YouTube Music, Google Calendar and more. When Google decided that dark mode was a good idea, we slowly saw every Google app being updated to support the new style.

Now Google wants the same thing for tablets: massive, coordinated, enterprise-wide support for tablet apps. Device numbers won’t support this natively, but in the chicken-and-egg scenario that builds the ecosystem, you have to build the software first before customers buy it. I was hoping we’d see a batch of apps. updates are launching along with Android 12L, but that doesn’t seem to be the case today.

Letting Samsung and Lenovo be ready by the end of the year with new tablet functionality really seems like the goal of Android 12.1 release. As the name suggests, this is one of the smallest Android releases in recent times, with only a few basic OS tablet features and nothing more. Android 12L was completely outside of the usual Android release schedule, with a strange developer preview from October to March. As of February, Google was simultaneously launching Android 12L and Android 13 developer previews at the same time. The 12L feature release gives Samsung and Lenovo the usual six-month period to get a new version of Android ready for the holidays. Hopefully we’ll see some tablet apps by then.