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Typically with every single new version of Android, we'll get an early look at it in the form of an alpha or beta release then we'll dig into it find the coolest new features and then share it with the guests.
Now this year with
Android 11 those earlier builds were honestly a little bit underwhelming like
the Alpha builds were not super feature-rich and they weren't ready.
But now that we're getting
towards that time of year where we were supposed to have Google i/o which was
of course canceled.
We're getting to that
time the beta builds that are coming out especially this first one are a lot
more close to final and there's some good stuff in here.
so we're gonna dive in
and take a look now keep in mind Android as just as a whole is a lot more well
baked more mature than it was a couple years ago.
So a couple years ago an
a version update like this could be a whole visual overhaul this isn't a visual
overhaul anymore this is a lot more tweaking a lot more fine-tuning but there
is still some cool stuff and some good features in here so that's we're gonna
take a look at
Following are the top 5
new features in new Android 11
Number 5: The Updated Pixel
Launcher
So this has been my
favorite launcher I guess on any Android phone for a couple years now anytime I
get a new phone I just kind of try to make the homescreen feel kind of like a
pixel but they have tweaked some stuff here.
First of all they let me
turn auto rotation on on the home screen which if I'm not wrong, that wasn't
enabled before so you can just turn your phone sideways like a tablet and just
use it like that right away I don't think I ever would use my phone like this
on the home screen I almost never turned it that way anyway so it's cool I
don't think that was enabled before
(i)
Then there's now a new
option for your bottom row of apps to be app suggestions so basically it moves everything
up a row and then that whole new bottom row is suggested apps to open on your
phone based on learned behaviors and you can pin a suggested app and place down
there if you think it should be there permanently and there's also an option in
settings to block an app from ever showing up there so just check the
box if you don't want it
to ever be suggested this to me is kind of neat I guess if those suggestions
get really good.
But I'm not a huge fan
of the idea of my homescreen being variable I feel like they should just stay
locked in place so I have quick access to everything now inside the app drawer
they let you have that top row as suggestions that's cool I'll leave it like
that it's been like that
for years but yeah I
think I'm probably not gonna use that option.
(ii)
The app switcher is also
a little bit different now, huge cards still, but now you get an app screenshot
button a share button and a select button to select text within the app and you
lose the extra pull down up to get into the app drawer and there's some small
new animations now you can see the wallpaper shifts a bit when you pull the notification
bar down and it also shifts when you pull up into the app drawer it's really
subtle it's super subtle but that's nice.
Number 4: The Power Button Hold
The power button hold
which is usually just to like turn off the phone or reset gets even more
functionality. Now I'm not sure why they chose the power button hold for this
stuff other than just giving quick access to things that weren't originally
quick But here we are
So now when you press
and hold the power button instead of just getting shut down restart and
screenshot you get all those things,
Plus a shortcut to
Google pay and whatever other cards and passes like boarding passes you have
which is broken right now in this beta and then also a bunch of smart home
toggles and I happen to have some compatible smart home stuff that I can
control so I can turn on my smart lights on and off and they work pretty
quickly it seems like and nest thermostat also worked quickly and easily and
you can even preview nest cameras now again I don't know if putting them here
in the power button long press menu is what I expected or or what most users
will expect to find here but I'm cool with it side note if you aren't you can
go into the system settings under power menu and take away the things thatyou
don't care about having here.
Number 3: New Media Controls
Its the new media controls
up at the top now this is an option that's actually not enabled by default and
I suspect that's because it's a bit buggy and incomplete but when you do go
into the developer settings and enable it it puts this little colorized media
widget in the top of your quick settings pull down I think this is sweet it's
like an Android eyes version of the iPhone’s quick settings media toggle and
since it's at the top it means you never have to scroll very far to pause
whatever music or podcast you're listening to.
Like I said, it is a bit
buggy but you can have more than one open at once but it doesn't yet work with
every single app like it doesn't work with YouTube yet and also sometimes the playback
scrubber doesn't work but generally I'm a big fan of this feature.
You can also quickly
toggle playback devices so if you have headphones or speakers paired stuff like
that.You can quickly get to that and the little mini player the color of it is
always gonna match the album art of whatever you're listening to so again very
subtle but that's nice.
Number 2: Three Voice Access or
Voice Control
I saw a video of using
it and it blew my mind. Basically it's an accessibility feature, so not everyone's
gonna use it but I feel like anything that improves accessibility on a phone
this much could be used by anyone basically and and what gets this good it's
worth it so here's how it works.
So the voice access
feature itself is not new, you can grab it from the place door it shows up in
the menus of your phone and when you enable it in this new Android beta its
controlling the phone with your voice and the best improvement here is instead
of just saying the number corresponding to what you want to press you can
actually also just say the name of the action and it's gotten really good at
responding
scroll down, scroll up,
go home, open Chrome, scroll up, go back ,open Twitter, tweet, I did a little test
of voice commands on Android 11 and it's pretty yet okay.
Number 1: A Visual Overhaul
The biggest new change
in yet another Android update is a new notification shade so in Android 11 the
notifications get separated into three categories
- Conversations,
- Alerting Notifications,
- and Silent Notifications.
So conversations is for
messaging, basically so text messages, Twitter DM's or whatever other apps end up
supporting. This I imagine slack and other messaging apps then alerting notifications
is basically all the standard stuff that's where you'd have them pile up
normally.
The silent notifications
are the ones that are persistent happening in the background more background
stuff like whether or Google now cards if it also got these more Jelly
animations they're pretty sloppy actually at the moment in this beta but I
think they can clean them up and they'll look nice and that's the real main change
here there's also some other little things like you can do bubble
notifications.
Basically chat heads are
being supported for messaging apps.
This is the thing you
can turn on and off in the settings I was never really a huge fan of chat heads
so I'm keeping it off.
Then there's also a new
fancy screen on and off animation see if there's a lot of little things definitely
little things and that is it for Android 11
My favorite new feature
of these is the new media controls up in the top, nice little compact widget up
there, because I'm always listening I feel like - something Music or Podcast.
Conclusion
So that’s all and I'm
curious, Do let us know in the comments section whats your favorite feature of these
5.
The unanswered question
is when will you get this update like when will you try this new stuff because
I'm testing it right now on my Pixel 4 and that's what you'd expect is a Pixel
to get it and there's a couple other Pixel models that can download it and test
it right now
But there's kind of no
way to know when a Samsung phone , HTC phone, a Motorola phone and Oneplus or
Xiaomi phone are all gonna get it when the carriers will allow it
So if you want to
guarantee that you get these latest features in your phone you have to have a Pixel
and that's the way it's been for a little while but other than that that's
about all we know that's the top 5 features in Android 11
If you have any
questions do connect with us on Social Media, we are 24X7 active on Instagram
so we can chat about them so that's been it.
Thanks for reading this
post also do check out similar other informative posts by Techronicle.