Android 11 will be released later in 2020 like clockwork, but developers and anyone happy to put up with a
half-finished operating system - bored much? - can try it out now. A
beta of the software is available here for Pixel 2, 3, 3a, and Pixel 4s. It has some, but not all, of the features of the final version.
We've taken a look at the beta on one of Google’s Pixel smartphones to see what progress has been made. On reflection, some changes are long overdue, the kind of tweaks a 2016 buyer might expect to see in six months rather than four years. But we do get, at least, the addition of some useful changes already in place in Android 11.
Device controls
The
Google Home speaker was released back in 2016, and was a bold sign of intent: Google wants to control your home. That home control should now feel better in Android 11.
Long-press the power button and you’ll see a new control screen. There are the usual buttons to reset and power off your phone, but most of the screen is given over
to Home. You can add shortcuts to devices linked to your Google Home app, perhaps for the smart lights in your bedroom.
Want to turn them all off as you leave the house? There
are now fewer steps involved. Android 11 does not currently
auto-populate this page; you choose the controls that sit in the Home
power panel. A little effort is required, then, but it avoids this part
of the OS becoming instantly overstuffed and unpalatable.
They
may be no more than widgets placed out of the way, but this panel sees
smart home tech given greater prominence in Android.
Permissions
App
permissions are a headache that will not go away. Most of us treat them
like the Cookies disclaimers and T&Cs documents we carelessly click
through.
Android 11 tweaks the system’s approach
and this may mean we end up having to validate more app permission
requests for the camera, our location and file system access. There will
be the option for one-time access, which grants that access while the
app is running, and for a “short period of time” after being bumped
off-screen into the background.
It will also start
pruning the permissions of apps you have not used for “a few months”.
However, in the Android 11 Beta at least, this needs to be manually
switched on in the Permissions part of Settings.
These techniques are designed to stop apps leeching data
they should not have access to, and may stop bad apps impacting your
battery life. It’s a genuine security improvement that edges Android
closer to the standards of iOS. However, app permissions will continue
to be the unavoidable irritant they are today.
A focus on conversations
Google
is in the process of redesigning how Android 11 handles chats. The
first change is simple. There is now a separate section at the top of
your notifications for conversations, from apps like WhatsApp and Google
Hangouts. They get higher billing than your emails, missed calls or the
step count reminder you’ve only taken 300 steps since breakfast.
Android 11 also separates notifications that actually come with an alert
and silenced ones.
Chat bubbles will have a more
significant effect on how Android 11 feels. Conversations in apps like
Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp can hang around as little avatar bubbles
on the edge of your phone screen. Tap them and they expand to a text
box in which you can reply.
It’s much like the Chat
Heads of Facebook Messenger, a feature introduced in 2013. And its
tentative implementation in the Android 11 beta build available to the
Pixel 3a XL suggests Google is still working out how to make it useful
rather than annoying.
It's only available in the
Developer Options part of Android, and in our test phone bubbles still
do not appear in Google Hangouts even after switching them on. Bubbles
work using an API, so it will be up to developers to implement them with
an update.
More clutter for your Android? Perhaps. There is
certainly more “stuff” added to Android 11. For example, you can now
rifle through your notification history over the last 24 hours by
scrolling to the bottom of the drop-down, where a link sits.
Smarter Voice Access
Voice
Access for Android has been around since 2018. It’s an app that lets
you control your phone with your voice, mapping little numbered icons
onto each tappable area of the screen.
It's not
completely new then. But Google says Android 11 adds an “on-device
visual cortex” that improves the feature. We spent a few hours comparing
Voice Access on a Pixel 3a XL with Voice Access on a OnePlus 8 Pro
running Android 10 to get to the bottom of the real change involved
here.
Initially, the two look the same. On the
average view of WIRED’s front page you might see 40 or so labels. You
can say that label’s number to “proxy tap” it or, in some cases, you can
read out the link’s text to head to it. To launch an app whose icon is
on-screen, for example.
Both versions let you head
to the home screen wherever you are. And, when Voice Access decides to
play along, you can scroll with a voice command.
Android 11’s changes are all to do with context and
intelligence. For example, say “wired.co.uk enter” when filling in the
address bar on the OnePlus 8 Pro and you end up with exactly those words
in the bar. But Android 11 takes “enter” as the command, taking you
right where you want to be.
The new version is also a
little better at knowing you want to load an app when there’s also some
oblique reference to that app on-screen, such as Twitter.
Voice
Access is more intelligent than before but there’s still a huge amount
of work to be done here. Google’s speech interaction is lauded as the
best around but you still can’t, for example, ask to share a page you’re
on. And simply asking to scroll down an article refuses to function
more often than it works. This is a work-in-progess, but hopefully it
will improve further before Android 11 is actually released.
Screen record
Google
has also made it easier for you to become a remote tech teacher for
your less savvy friends and family, by cleaning up the screen recorder
function added in Android 10.
There are no real new
features here. In Android 10 you can already capture a video that shows
your screen prods and swipes, and records the feed from the phone’s mic
as well as any played audio. But the interface for Screen Record is much
cleaner, avoiding a trip to the settings menu to alter what to record.
It’s more friendly and will save you time, if not substantively
different below the surface.
Android 11 Beta: First impressions
Android
11’s changes so far are not world-changing, but do at least focus on
the ways we use our phones. There are changes to how media controls are
displayed, your conversations with friends have greater prominence and
we get a little more protection from apps that want to do dodgy things
in the background. Smart home fans get a neat control panel too, which
could be a major improvement if you have a stack of gadgets in your
home.
We’d like to see greater improvements to
Android 11’s accessibility features, though. The concept behind voice
controls context-aware smarts are great, but in use they just don’t seem
quite intelligent enough.
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