What you need to know

• The LG Velvet has finally started receiving its Android 12 update.
• For now, the rollout appears to be limited to South Korea.
• LG also plans to bring Android 13 to the Velvet and other high-end phones launched in 2019 or later.

After years of struggling to compete with rivals such as Samsung and Apple, LG finally decided to exit the smartphone market in April last year. Shortly after announcing the move, however, LG promised that it would continue to provide software support to its best Android phones.

Staying true to that promise, LG has now started pushing the stable Android 12 update to Velvet users in its home market. Sadly, there’s currently no word on when the update will make its way outside South Korea.

It also looks like owners of the LG Velvet LTE variant will have to wait a little longer to get Android 12. Last year, the LTE variant of the Velvet received the stable Android 11 update a few weeks after it was rolled out to the 5G variant.

As you’d expect, the update includes a number of new features — including camera and microphone indicators, approximate location, a new privacy dashboard, and Material You design tweaks. We can expect to learn more about the changes included in the update once it expands to Europe, North America, and other regions.

The LG Velvet was launched in mid-2020 with Android 10 out of the box. It received an update to Android 11 in the second quarter of last year. Since LG has announced a “three-year pledge” for OS updates, we can expect the Velvet to receive the Android 13 update sometime next year. Besides the LG Velvet, the LG Wing, G series, and V series phones released in 2019 and later are also expected to get three major OS updates.