All the changes we’ve found so far!

The third developer preview for Android 11 was released yesterday. You can download Android 11 Developer Preview 3 right now on most Google Pixel smartphones, compatible Project Treble-compatible devices, or Android Studio. This version is intended for developers, so you should not install it unless you plan to develop an Android app using the latest APIs. However, if you’re just curious about what’s new at launch, we’ve been researching the latest developer preview and compiling all the new features and changes below.

New user-oriented features

Recent app screen gets bigger previews and shortcut buttons

The app previews in recent apps are slightly larger than before, and there are now shortcuts for “Screenshot” and “Share” at the bottom. The “Screenshot” button takes a screenshot of the application that the mouse is hovering over in the overview of recent applications, while the “Share” button takes a screenshot and then immediately opens the sheet to share. These buttons replace the row of application suggestions and the search bar that normally appeared at the bottom of the overview of recent applications.

App permissions can be automatically revoked if the app hasn’t been used for months

One of the most exciting new privacy features is a new toggle on the app-specific permission pages called “Automatic Revocation Permissions”. As the name implies, this feature is supposed to automatically revoke an app’s permissions if the app hasn’t been used for a few “months”. Very useful, but there is no way to test it since Android 11 Developer Preview 3 was released yesterday.

Notification tone has been slightly redesigned and hidden persistent notifications are now less intrusive

Google loves adjusting the notification tone as we’ve seen in Android 11 Developer Previews above, and in Developer Preview 3, we’re seeing even more changes. The line indicating that you can expand the Quick Settings options is wider and there is a gradient in the shadow. In addition to the “Clear All” button, there is a “History” button that takes you to the new Notification History page in Android 11. Also, in Developer Preview 3, you can swipe any notifications, even persistent ones that should be displayed for apps with service in the foreground. When dismissed, the persistent notification appears below the rest of the notifications in the “Background active apps” section.

Undo gesture to recover applications discarded in Recent

A change that has been testing since the first beta versions of Android 10 (Q) has returned: the time to “undo” the closure of a page of recent applications is much longer than before. pic.twitter.com/Ld5sXmaMWs

– Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) April 23, 2020

A feature that has been testing since the first beta versions of Android Q is finally here. There is a gesture to retrieve an app you just swipe on the Recent app menu. After swiping the app, you have a short period of time where you can swipe down to return to the list. You have about a second to do this, and you can swipe anywhere on the screen.

There is a new compact screen capture popup menu, but scrolling screenshots are not supported yet

After taking a screenshot on Android 10, the screenshot options are displayed in the notification panel. You can share, edit or delete the screenshot. In Android 11 DP3, there is a new compact pop-up menu that appears when taking a screenshot. You can discard the screenshot by tapping the X button, share the screenshot, or tap the edit button to mark the screenshot in an image editor. A third option will allow you to take scrolling screenshots, but this is not yet fully implemented.

Individual sensitivity to the left / right of the gesture

Android 10 introduced full-screen gesture navigation with the pickup bar at the bottom. To replace the Back button, Google added inward swipe gestures from the left and right sides of the screen. In case you find it difficult or too easy to do the reverse gesture, you can increase or decrease the sensitivity, which simply changes the starting point of the reverse gesture. However, these sensitivity options apply to both sides of the screen.

In Android 11 DP3, you can independently adjust the sensitivity for both sides of the screen. This will allow you, for example, to decrease the sensitivity of the gesture backwards from the left edge and to increase the sensitivity of the gesture backwards from the right edge. This can be useful if many of your apps still have sidebars that open from the left. Even better is that, with the addition of this independent gesture sensitivity feature, it’s possible Completely disable the left or right back gesture. For example, if you want to disable just the left border backspace, just run the following ADB command:

adb shell settings put secure back_gesture_inset_scale_left 0

Support for Ethernet connection

The Hotspot & tethering menu has a new option for the Ethernet connection. This allows you to share your phone’s Internet connection by connecting a USB to Ethernet adapter and then connecting a device to the adapter. This is probably a special feature, but it can come in handy when you travel and want to use a hotel PC on your own network.

New incorporation screen for Bubbles

When you start a Bubble for the first time on Android 11 DP3, a new dialog box appears with additional information on how they work. This is a good step to make Bubbles a consumer-oriented feature.

Caption preferences have been redesigned

Google is reworking the standard options for optional captions. What was once a single page in settings has branched out into multiple pages and has been given a facelift to get more in line with other parts of the user interface.

Disable ADB authorization timeout toggle in Developer Options

A new toggle has been added in the developer options called “Disable adb authorization timeout”. When enabled, this will disable “automatic revocation” of ADB authorizations on PCs that have not been reconnected within 7 days.

Volume menu renamed to Sound

One of the smallest changes in Android 11 DP3 is renaming the Volume menu to “Sound”. That is literally it. Greetings to AndroidPolice for pointing this out!

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Features still in development

In the debug versions of the new Launcher3 APK, as found in the Android 11 DP3 system image in the Android Studio emulator, you can enable a “Select” button in the overview of recent apps. Once this works, you can probably select text in the overview of recent apps. You can already do this by pressing the text on the app preview cards on Pixel phones, but many people may not know that this is possible. Adding a “select” button will make this more obvious to users. We hope that Google can even enable this feature on non-Pixel devices.

In debug versions of Launcher3, as in the Android Studio image, you can also enable a “select” button in the overview of recent apps. This will probably allow you to select text in the overview of recent applications. pic.twitter.com/chsjdsRL9a

– Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) April 23, 2020

Resize windows from picture to picture

In the last developer preview, Google added code to resize PiP windows. Now in Android 11 DP3 the function is working, but not yet available to users. Once the feature is activated, all you have to do to resize PiP windows is to tap just outside the corners of the window and then drag in or out to resize. It can be a bit tricky taking the right place, but it works, as you can see in the video embedded above.

New animation for the next “Battery Share” feature

The Battery Sharing menu, which we saw earlier in the first Android 11 Developer Preview, has a new animation and slider. The animation shows a phone wirelessly charging the case for a pair of wireless headphones and another phone. Currently, no Pixel phone supports reverse wireless charging, so the inclusion of this setting seems like a nod to a future device. Although the phone featured in the animation resembles the upcoming Pixel 4a, we don’t think the Pixel 4a really supports wireless charging and, by extension, reverse wireless charging.

Next configuration page “Hours”

Based on the strings and code we discovered in the Settings app, it appears that Google will introduce a new “Schedules” setup page to consolidate all the programmable settings under one roof. There will be no new functions on this page, but it will make it easier to control all the other configurations that can be programmed. This includes things like bedtime mode (formerly relaxing in digital wellness), focus mode in digital wellness, do not disturb mode, battery saver, alarms, rulers, dark mode and night light.

Blurred window

A hidden setting in Developer Options will enable window blurs at the composer level. It is unclear on which devices this will be implemented.

Further development of the “Quick Controls” function

The latest developer preview revealed Google’s work on “Quick Controls” for the power menu. This new menu appears to be a hub for smart home automation shortcuts. While not much has changed on the surface in Android 11 DP3, we have found evidence that There has been a lot of progress under the hood in the Controls API.

New “contact discovery” feature

There is a new hidden toggle in Settings called “Contact Discovery”. The description of this feature indicates that you will periodically send all of your contacts’ phone numbers to your operator to find out which calling features are supported. This probably refers to the User Capacity Exchange, or UCE, which is part of RCS.

New system permissions to avoid audio recording restrictions and monitor camera apertures

Google has added two system level permissions for the Android 11 Developer Preview 3 framework: EXEMPT_FROM_AUDIO_RECORD_RESTRICTIONS and CAMERA_OPEN_CLOSE_LISTENER. The former requires a privileged or signature level of permission, while the latter is strictly signature-only. The description of the first claims that it is intended for system applications to bypass the limitations of existing audio recording APIs, which we believe will be useful in implementing Live Captions for phone calls. The latter will allow system applications to monitor when the camera session begins or ends, which can be used to implement new privacy features in future versions.

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That’s all we thought was worth highlighting in this release. Follow our Android 11 news tag to stay updated on everything we’ve covered so far in the next version of the Android operating system.

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