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The Android 12 Easter egg brings a splash of color

There's a colorful Easter egg hidden in the Android 12 settings menu. Here's how to find it.

Andrew Lanxon headshot
Andrew Lanxon headshot
Andrew Lanxon Editor At Large, Lead Photographer, Europe
Andrew is CNET's go-to guy for product coverage and lead photographer for Europe. When not testing the latest phones, he can normally be found with his camera in hand, behind his drums or eating his stash of home-cooked food. Sometimes all at once.
Expertise Smartphones, Photography, iOS, Android, gaming, outdoor pursuits Credentials
  • Shortlisted for British Photography Awards 2022, Commended in Landscape Photographer of the Year 2022
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Andrew Lanxon
2 min read
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Andrew Hoyle/CNET

For every operating system it releases, Android hides an Easter egg -- and Android 12 carries on the tradition.

To find this new Easter egg, head to Settings, then scroll down and tap About Phone. 

In there, find and tap on Android Version, which will take you to an information page about, unsurprisingly, your version of Android. 

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There should be a section at the top that says Android version 12. Tap this repeatedly and the screen will transform to show a clock, complete with the Material You colors based on whatever background you have set. 

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See the "Android version" section? Tap that several times.

 Andrew Hoyle/CNET

You'll need to tap and drag the minute hand on the clock and move them round until both hands point straight upward in the 12 o'clock position. You'll feel a small vibration pulse at each hour position, but it's only at the actual 12 position that the clock will disappear and you'll be greeted with the Easter egg screen: the number 12 in a sea of circles, all decked out in colors to match your background. 

There's no further hidden game (as we've experience with older versions of Android) and it would maybe have been fun to at least be able to pop some of those circles or move them around a bit. Still, it's pretty enough to look at. To dismiss it, you can swipe up from the bottom of the screen the way you would to switch apps.

Read more: Galaxy S22 gets Android 12's Material You design, so you can change all the colors