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The most important Android 11 features so far



We only have an Android 11 Developer Preview so far, but we can still make a list of the most notable new features in that preview. Check it out here!

The very first Android 11 Developer Preview landed earlier today. This is our first look at the next version of Android, which won’t land in a stable form until the third quarter of the year.

The Developer Preview landing this early is pretty notable as most DPs usually land in March. The reasoning behind this move likely has to do with just how developer-focused Android 11 is at the moment. Most of the changes within the system are not user-facing but could have a dramatic impact on existing and upcoming Android apps.

As such, installing Android 11 on your own phone right now might not be too worth it. There will be a lot of bugs and most of the new features you won’t even see. Though, there are a few new user-facing features like a native screen recorder, chat bubbles, and more.
  • Native screen recording: Google has been toying around with adding a built-in screen recorder to Android, and Android 11 pretty much confirms the feature will launch this year. It’s buggy, but you can use the screen recorder in the first Android 11 preview!
  • Muting notifications during video: Don’t you hate when you’re filming your dog or your kid and you get a notification? That’s super annoying. Android 11 will let you mute notifications while you’re recording video.
  • Increase touch sensitivity: Those who use screen protectors will love this feature. Google added a “increase touch sensitivity” option to the settings menu that lets you, well, increase the sensitivity of your touchscreen. If you use a screen protector, this should result in fewer missed taps and scrolls.
  • More granular back gesture tweaking: The back gesture can be a little frustrating at times, as you perform a similar gesture to activate hamburger menus. Fortunately, Android 11 has two sliders to let you control the sensitivity of the back gesture — one for the left side of the screen and one for the right. This is a welcome change from the single sensitivity slider in Android 10.
  • Better support for curved/waterfall displays: Curved screens look great, but they can often be a little annoying to use. This is because apps and things like keyboards spill over the edges, making it tough to interact with these elements. Now, Google is offering an API (similar to the notch/cutout API), letting developers specify the interactive area of a screen.
  • Airplane mode doesn’t kill Bluetooth: Previously, turning on airplane mode would also kill Bluetooth on your phone, which doesn’t make much sense. People who use airplane mode might have Bluetooth headphones connected, resulting in having to turn on Bluetooth again. In Android 11, Bluetooth stays on when airplane mode is activated.
  • Scrolling screenshots are coming: It’s not active in the first Android 11 dev preview, but it looks like Google will finally bring scrolling screenshot support to Android!
  • New Motion Sense option for Pixel 4: We’ve been complaining for a few months that Google seems to be neglecting Motion Sense on the Pixel 4. In Android 11, the company is adding a new way to control your phone without touching it. In Android 11, you can tap the air above the phone to pause your music.
  • App pinning in the share menu: Android used to let you pin your most frequently used apps to the share sheet, but that option was removed in Android 10. Now it’s back.
  • Reverse wireless charging for Pixel 5? In Android 11’s settings, you’ll find a feature called Battery Share. This could mean Google is prepping reverse wireless charging for the Pixel 5.
  • New technologies: Android 11 is going to be much better when it comes to working with new technologies, including 5G, foldable displays, and low-latency video decoding for game streaming services such as Google Stadia. There will also be better call screening support, deeper integration of image formats such as HEIF, and support for Google’s own neural networks API.
  • Enhanced notification shade conversations: When you get a text, you can see the most recent message in your notification shade under a new Conversations tab. Not only will you be able to see more of the thread but you’ll also have richer ways to compose messages, including a way to send picture messages right from the notification.
  • Notification History: Android doesn’t make it easy for you to see previously dismissed notifications, with Android 10’s Notification Log basically hidden for users. Now, Android 11 offers a Notification History option, but it’s not easy to find either or polished at this stage.
  • Conversation bubbles: This was actually a feature Google launched in Android 10. However, Google is including it within its own wrap-up of Android 11 features, which leads us to believe Google is going to push harder for this to be adopted by more developers and OEMs.
  • Context-aware dark mode: The system-wide dark mode launched with Android 10 will get a “new” trick with Android 11: the ability to automatically activate or deactivate depending on the time of day. As spotted by Android Police, this is actually a feature OEMs such as Samsung have already integrated on their own, but now it will be baked right into Android.
  • Enhanced one-time permissions: You know how in Android 10 you can tell apps to grab your location, microphone, or camera data only while the app is open? Now, the OS can let you approve those permissions just a single time and will revoke the permission later.
  • Scoped storage: In the interest of better security, apps will now only have access to certain parts of your filesystem. This will essentially “silo” apps to better protect your private data. This is a huge change for Android and is causing quite a stir in the development community. Google acknowledges those issues in its blog post on Android 11, saying it will give more time to developers to fully transition to the new system.
  • Enhancements for Project Mainline: Android 10 introduced the ability to update parts of Android right through the Play Store. Android 11 will take this even further by allowing even more parts of Android to get updates without needing to send out a full OTA.
That list might seem pretty short, but keep in mind there are tons of other updates out there that are far more technical in nature that the general user will never see. However, many new features will likely pop up in future Developer Previews between now and the stable launch of Android 11. Stay tuned!

Source: androidauthority.com

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