The first builds of Android 11 were released a few hours ago, coming to us in the form of Developer Preview 1. This new release of Android brings along a lot of new privacy and security-focused changes, several developer-oriented updates, and a whole bunch of changes that were not part of the announcement post from Google. While we were looking around for more new, unannounced changes in the newest version of Android, we stumbled upon something that surprised us…but not really. With Android 11, Google is testing a separation of the Quick Settings panel from the Notification Shade — a feature that used to exist in several older custom ROMs.
As Mishaal demonstrates on his Google Pixel 2 Xl running Android 11 Developer Preview 1, Android 11 is testing a feature that separates the Quick Settings dropdown from the Notification Panel dropdown, allowing you to quickly jump into either depending on which side of the status bar you pull down from. In the video, you can spot a white line on the status bar indicating the point of separation — swiping down from the left of this line will pull down the notification shade, while swiping down from the right of this line will pull down the Quick Settings panel. If your intent is to access the Quick Settings panel, this will streamline your experience by eliminating the double swipe that is currently needed to access them.
As is evident from the video, this feature is still very much a Work-in-Progress. The notifications do not align themselves properly to the top of the notification shade, and the Quick Settings panel has an odd line where the notifications would normally appear. This feature is thus not available for toggling by default and needs to be manually activated.
If you have been around the custom ROM scenes in the era of Gingerbread and Ice Cream Sandwich, you would realize that this isn’t exactly a new feature. I personally recall having used this feature on Touchwiz-based custom ROMs based on Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread as well as on heavily modified CyanogenMod builds that were based on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. It appears that Google has now taken inspiration from custom ROMs for this UI test, though at this stage, there’s no guarantee that this feature will make its way to the final release of Android 11.
In current builds of Android, whenever you’re listening to music on your phone a music player appears in the notifications shade. Sometimes, when you receive too many notifications, the music player is moved to the bottom and you have to open the notification shade all the way in order to access it. This could prove to be a bit of an annoyance, especially if you’re someone who receives a ton of notifications.
It seems like Google is aware of this issue and might be addressing it in a future build of Android 11 by putting the music player in the Quick Settings panel. As you can see in the screenshots above, the music player will appear as a part of the Quick Settings panel right next to the other toggles. In order to accommodate the music player, the Quick Settings panel will expand from one to two rows and will display the Quick Settings toggles on one side, while the music player will take up the other side.
Opening the Quick Settings panel completely by swiping down once again will move the music player to the bottom of the panel, with all the toggles right above it. In a bid to accommodate the music player, the Quick Settings panel will take up more space than it does currently but, on the positive side, the music player will always be accessible right at the top. As of now, this feature is not accessible by default on the first Android 11 developer preview and we had to manually enable it in order to take these screenshots. It’s also worth mentioning that this is one of several UI tests in Android 11, so it may or may not appear in the stable build. In case it does, there’s also a chance that Google might make some significant changes to it before launch.
In a recent post on the Android Developer website, Google has shared a detailed timeline for the Android 11 rollout, along with some information about what will be included in each developer preview/beta release. As per the timeline, the Android 11 Developer Preview program will run till the final public release in Q3 2020 and Google will be releasing two more developer previews and three betas before the final release. The second developer preview will be rolled out in March and it will be an incremental update with additional features, APIs and behavior changes. This will be followed by the third developer preview in April, which will be another incremental update for stability and performance.
The first Android 11 beta will be released over-the-air in May to early adopters who’ve enrolled in the Android Beta program. With the first beta, Google will continue compatibility testing, collect feedback from beta users, and start early testing with targeting Android 11. The second beta, which will be a Platform Stability milestone for Google, will be rolled out in June and will bring final APIs and behaviors. It will also open Play publishing and developers will be urged to start final compatibility testing for apps, SDKs, and libraries. The third, and final, beta will be a release candidate build and is expected to be rolled out in Q3 2020. Following its release, developers will be required to release compatible updates for apps, SDKs, and libraries. The final release to AOSP and the ecosystem will follow soon thereafter.
This time around, Google is introducing a new Platform Stability milestone (as mentioned above) which is expected to help developers plan and test their final releases. The milestone signifies that Android 11 will reach its final internal and external APIs, final app-facing behaviors, and final non-SDK graylists by the second beta release, following which there will be no further changes that will affect third-party apps. Google has urged developers to target the milestone for final planning, compatibility testing, and public release of their Android 11 compatible apps.
I’m sure that everyone has accidentally swiped away a notification before they got a chance to read it fully. You’re then left checking half a dozen apps to see if you missed an important message. That can be a frustrating experience because you just don’t know if you’re missing out on something important. What you may not know is that Android has had a built-in notification log for many years now, since Android 4.3 Jelly Bean in 2012, in fact! Unfortunately, Google never made the notification log accessible in settings, so its Holo UI looks wildly outdated compared to Google’s more modern Material Theme. The feature has effectively been abandoned for years now, and many OEMs even remove access to it! However, it looks like Google is finally giving the feature some attention, as they’ve not only tweaked the UI of the old notification log, but they’ve also implemented a brand new “Notification History” page in Android 11!
First, let’s start with the Notification Log. As seen in the screenshots below, courtesy of XDA Recognized Developer Quinny899, this shows a pretty basic timeline of all the notifications that arrived on your phone. The UI has been cleaned up a little bit for Android 11, but it’s the same idea. You can see the notification title, app, some contents, and the time it arrived. Pretty simple, but valuable information.
The more interesting discovery is a brand new “Notification History” page in Android 11. To our initial surprise, this is a completely separate page from the Notification Log that’s been around for years. The Notification History page is more polished and looks like something meant for consumers to use. It shows “Recently dismissed” notifications at the top that you can scroll through as a list. You get the same information about the notifications that are shown in the Notification Log, but this UI looks a lot nicer.
If you’re interested in seeing this feature for yourself, you can create a shortcut to it using the activity launcher in the custom launcher of your choice (eg. Nova Launcher, Action Launcher, etc.) or you can use the dedicated Activity Launcher app from the Google Play Store below. Just find “Settings” and then scroll down to “notification history.”
We hope Google surfaces this feature in a later Developer Preview or public Beta release. Any potential privacy concerns can be addressed by the fact that someone has to already have physical access to the unlocked device in order to view this page. Adding this feature to the Settings app of Android 11 would mean users won’t have to manually launch either the activity for Notification Log or Notification History.
Today, Google released the first Android 11 Developer Preview for Pixel devices (excluding the first generation models), and we’ve in the process of detailing everything we’ve found so far. While digging into the Android 11 system dump for the Pixel 4, I noticed a new activity in SettingsGoogle, the Settings app for Pixel smartphones, called “Battery Share.” Intrigued, I launched the activity and discovered what looked to be an upcoming feature. The logo is clearly a placeholder—it’s the same one from the Adaptive Battery page—but the strings, which are new, suggest that Google is working on a reverse wireless charging feature, possibly for the Pixel 5.
Since the activity name was prefaced with “com.google.android” rather than “com.android,” this “Battery Share” activity is most likely a Google feature rather than an AOSP one. This pattern is true for other Google features such as Active Edge and Pixel Stand wireless charging, so we think we’re looking at the beginnings of Google’s reverse wireless charging feature rather than a generic AOSP implementation. The strings for the Battery Share page state that “your phone’s battery will run out faster when using battery share. Battery share works with compatible ear buds, watches, phones, and more.” While this doesn’t explicitly mention wireless charging or reverse wireless charging, the implication is clear: You’re sharing your phone’s battery, which means it’ll run out faster, with certain compatible ear buds, watches, and phones. We can assume this is referring to using your device to charge other Qi-compatible accessories and smartphones.
Google’s Pixel 3, Pixel 3 XL, Pixel 4, and Pixel 4 XL support Qi wireless charging. The Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL support 10W wireless charging using the proprietary Pixel Stand charger, though they also support 5W Qi wireless charging on other wireless chargers. The Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL also support 10W wireless charging on the Pixel Stand, but Google increased the wireless charging rate to 11W for compatible Qi wireless chargers. No Pixel phone currently supports reverse wireless charging at the moment; whichever device ends up having this feature, which is likely the Pixel 5, will be the first in Google’s Pixel line to support the feature. This feature would pair nicely with the new truly wireless Pixel Buds.
We’ll continue digging into the Android 11 Developer Preview to see if we can find more information about this feature, the upcoming Android OS stable release, or the Pixel 5.
Google has officially kicked off the next version of Android by releasing the first developer preview for Android 11. This first preview is intended for developers, but there are also several consumer-facing features to note. We will be updating this post throughout the day and week with all of the new features we uncover while digging around.
This will make a lot of people happy. As the name implies, you can now schedule the Dark Theme to come on at specific times. The options are the same as what we get for Night Light: sunset to sunrise or a custom time.
Bubbles Notifications Enabled by Default
Bubbles were introduced in Android 10 and we’ve known Google intends to do more with them. In Android 11 DP 1, bubbles notifications are enabled by default. You still have to long-press the notification and tap “bubble” to use this feature, and the app has to actually support it. You just don’t have to enable the option in Developer Options anymore.
“Conversations” Section in Notifications
There is a new section in the Notifications pull down for “Conversations.” This is where notifications from messaging apps will appear, and there are some new quick actions you can take on them. You have the option to “Snooze” a notification, mute it, show it as a bubble, or “favorite,” which we’re not sure what that does. The crossed-out messaging icon next to the Settings icon (second screenshot) removes the notification from the conversation section.
Screen Record Toggle in Quick Settings
If you take a lot of screen recordings you’ll be happy to see there is now a toggle for “Screen Record” in the Quick Settings pull down. Screen recordings do not capture internal app audio at this time, however.
New UI for Do Not Disturb settings
Do Not Disturb has been reorganized once again. Exceptions are organized into People, Apps, and Alarms & other interruptions. The other settings are the same, but moved around a bit.
New “Ask Every Time” option for permissions
Permissions were a big deal in Android 10 and there some new features in Android 11 as well. There is a new “Ask Every Time” option, which means the app will ask your permission every single time it wants to use your camera, contacts, etc.
Apps won’t annoy you with repeated permission requests
Ever get frustrated with apps that constantly ask you for permissions? Android 11 will stop this by preventing apps from asking for permissions if you tap Deny twice for a specific permission.
These actions will also be taken into account:
If the user presses the back button to dismiss the permission dialog, this doesn’t count as a “deny” action.
If the user is taken to system settings from your app using requestPermissions() and then presses the back button, this does count as a “deny” action.
Gesture Settings in More Places
One of the most notable changes in Android 10 was the full gesture navigation system. In Android 11, the settings for gestures have been put in the Accessibility settings as well as the old location of Settings > System > Gestures. This should make it easier to find.
Android 11 Dynamic System Updates installer in Developer Option
Dynamic System Updates are now in the Developer options in Android 11. In the screenshot above, you can see what the installer looks like for installing a Dynamic System Update package.
New setting to show the display refresh rate in Developer Options
For people who like to see information on the screen, there is a new toggle in the Developer Options to show the current display refresh rate.
Bluetooth devices stay connected in Airplane Mode
As we previously reported, Android 11 changes the behavior of Airplane Mode. If you are currently using a Bluetooth device connected to your phone, Bluetooth will not be turned off when you enable Airplane Mode.
Pixel 4 gets a new increased touch sensitivity option
An interesting new feature for Pixel 4 users is “Increase touch sensitivity” in the Display options. The description says it “improves touch when using screen protectors.” That’s a handy feature if you’re using a particularly thick screen protector, such as tempered glass. Whether or not people will know this toggle exists is another story.
New screenshot preview with scrolling screenshot support
Way back in May of 2019, Dave Burke said they would add support for scrolling features in “Android R.” Android 11 (the artist previously known as Android R) is here and so are scrolling screenshots. There’s a catch though: it doesn’t work yet. We were able to manually activate the UI element, as shown above, but it’s not functional. We’ll likely see it in an upcoming release.
New Motion Sense gesture to pause music on the Pixel 4
Motion Sense was a headlining feature of the Pixel 4 but the media control functionality is pretty limiting. You could only use it to skip songs or go back to the previous song. Android 11 adds a gesture to play/pause music by mimicking a tap with your whole hand in front of the display.
Pin an app to the Share Menu
Android’s native share menu has changed a lot in recent years and many people still don’t like it. In Android 11, Google is attempting to make it easier to use by allowing apps to be pinned to the menu. This means those apps will always be at the top and easy to find.
New Magnify Settings
Google has revamped the magnifications settings page in Android 11. The first page shows the option to “Use shortcut to magnify” and “Magnification settings.” The settings page has options for the magnification area and to enable full-screen magnification. This is a much nicer and more useful menu for these important accessibility options.
Keep an eye on this post as we will continue to add more discoveries from Android 11!
When Google announced the Pixel 4, one of the main things they showed off was Motion Sense. These are air gestures using Google’s proprietary Soli chip. It is basically a miniature radar chip built into the phone. At launch, it could control music by skipping tracks and it could detect when you were picking up the phone. With Android 11, released today as the first developer preview, Google has added a few new features including a play/pause gesture for controlling music.
This new gesture in Android 11 is like a tap in the air above the phone. It’s definitely hard to get just right, but it is a good gesture to have. It is one of the few controls that I felt was really missing from the whole music control suite. Thankfully, Google has added it. It’s more of a light tap in the air instead of an intentional tap. It’s like touching an invisible touch screen instead of pressing a big button.
In my brief testing after installing Android 11, I do find the other Motion Sense gestures to be a bit more accurate. I’ve found that I don’t need to intentionally make the actions and more natural motions are working to control the device. It’s a good upgrade as Motion Sense was largely known as a bad gimmick by the tech community. Hopefully, with these improvements, Google has brought it past the point of a bad gimmick and turned it into an actually meaningful feature.
It’s good to see Google is adding new features to Motion Sense in Android 11. I know a lot of the community was worried Google would add it then completely ignore it until the Pixel 5. Luckily, they are improving and upgrading it to make the bezel vs notch trade-off more worth it.
