The days when every release of Google’s Android operating system was analyzed in detail are over, as the platform has matured and most updates bring just incremental enhancements. But Android 12, due out next year, is looking rather more impactful, with a promise to support two kinds of 5G network slicing at the device end. Most conversations about network slicing focus on the 5G Standalone core, and the surrounding orchestration and automation technologies that will be needed to support true, dynamic, end-to-end slicing. That will allow virtual slices of connectivity to be carved out from one or more physical networks – eventually on a dynamic and on-demand basis – with networking and sometimes compute resources being provisioned and optimized for…