Google's upcoming Pixel 6 smartphone is getting a long-awaited upgrade. A few years after Samsung did it with the Galaxy S10, it appears that Google has finally decided to follow suit.

While not a sure thing, the evidence is from the latest developer build of Android 12, which is certainly possible since the OS preview has previously revealed secrets of previously unreleased Pixel devices.

As first reported by XDA Developers, developer kdrag0n discovered a bunch of new classes in the SystemUIGoogle app, one of which is called "UdfpsControllerGoogle". This may sound like gibberish, but UDFPS is a fairly common acronym for "under-display fingerprint sensor."

This could be general Android feature support, but the fact that it is included in the com.google.android.systemui path rather than com.android.systemui indicates that it is not generic and is specific to Pixel phones This indicates that it is not a generic one, but is exclusive to Pixel phones.

Like Apple, Google initially believed that facial recognition was the preferred alternative for unlocking, and the Pixel 4 came without any fingerprint reader. However, Google's face unlocking seemed a bit half-baked, and instead the rear-mounted fingerprint reader returned in the lower-priced Pixel 5.

This time, Google seems to be able to offer the best of both worlds instead: a month ago, XDA Developers' Mishaal Rahman discovered that the first Developer Preview of Android 12 included a reference to unlocking devices "securely with face and fingerprint." He discovered that it included a reference to a way to do this. A scanner built into the screen would certainly be a neat design, and in a world that will likely still be wearing face masks for the foreseeable future, returning to face recognition alone would feel like a misstep.

Otherwise, the Pixel 6 rumors are pretty thin at the moment, but the upcoming SoC, the Snapdragon 775, should still give it a big shot, with a reported move to a 5nm design and general performance improvements. Also, it wouldn't be a Pixel phone without image processing, and the camera technology is guaranteed to punch far above its weight.

Of course, this is not the next phone Google has in store; the Pixel 6 will likely arrive in October or November, but we're hearing that the next budget entry-level model, the Google Pixel 5a, could arrive as early as June. Theoretically, the Pixel 5a could feature a fingerprint scanner under the screen, but that is unlikely; not only does the leaked information about the Pixel 5a include a rear fingerprint scanner, but the fact that we are learning about the Pixel's implementation from the Android 12 Developer Preview suggests that the OS history of recent September updates pretty much rules it out.