Google’s next major mobile OS release is on its way, with Android 15 expected to formally arrive a little later this year. That’s going to introduce plenty of tweaks and new additions, like support for Satellite SOS during emergencies. One particular change we’re looking forward to involves the platform’s integration with note-taking apps, allowing users to quickly access their preferred note app right from the lock screen. Today we’re checking out the progress one of those apps is making towards adding support for this new Android 15 feature.

As we mentioned back when first sharing news of Android 15’s note-app lock screen support, this isn’t just going to work by default with whatever app you use to take notes now (and no, saving notes as drafts in Gmail doesn’t count). Developers have to intentionally build support for this new way of accessing their software, including the appropriate steps towards preserving privacy, considering we’re doing all this right from the lock screen. Google Keep has been ready to go for ages already, and now we think we’ve spotted what could be the next major app to do its own preparations.

We’re checking out Microsoft OneNote version 16.0.17928.20054 beta, in which we observe the presence of the following strings:

<string name="feature_notes_role_description_when_permission_disabled">Allow to make OneNote as "Default Notes App"</string>
<string name="feature_notes_role_description_when_permission_enabled">Add Lock Screen Note Taking shortcut from settings</string>
<string name="feature_notes_role_enable_button">Enable Lock Screen Notes</string>
<string name="feature_notes_role_title">Lock Screen Notes - Take notes over lock screen</string>
<string name="permission_notes_role_disable_description">Are you sure you want to remove OneNote as “Default Note Taking App” ?</string>
<string name="permission_notes_role_enable_description">We need permission to make OneNote as “Default Note Taking App” to enable this.</string>
<string name="setting_notes_role_summary">Turn this on to quickly jot down notes over Lock Screen.</string>
<string name="setting_notes_role_title">Lock Screen Sticky Notes</string>

Indeed, being able to choose an app as your default notes app is fundamental to Android 15’s lock screen support, and further strings here confirm Microsoft’s work towards preparing that compatibility. But even on Android 14, we should be able to set a primary notes app (after enabling it in developer settings, anyway) — and despite the progress we seem to be seeing here, you’re still not able to do that with OneNote. That suggests to us that Microsoft’s still working on setting OneNote up with the permissions and roles it will ultimately need.

With Android 15 still in beta, Microsoft has at least a few more weeks to get OneNote ready if it intends to have lock screen support ready for the platform’s release. Right now, our best estimate places that as happening sometime this fall.

Android 14 was publicly launched with the Pixel 8 series back in October 2023. We’re well into the new year, and Google has begun testing the next version of Android, now up to the Android 15 Beta 4.2. This beta is the second platform stability release, meaning the APIs are finalized, and we are even closer to the stable Android 15 rollout.

In this article, we’ll tell you everything we know (and think we know) about Android 15 so far! Fair warning, we’ve covered a lot of features in immense detail, so this article is very long. Consequently, this article has several indexes that should make it easier to navigate.

Android 15: Name and release date

Google used to name Android versions with dessert codenames, but it strayed away from that tradition with the release of Android 10, where it decided to stick with only the version number for all future releases. So Android 15 is simply known as Android 15. However, Google still uses the dessert codenames internally. Android 15’s internal codename is Vanilla Ice Cream.

Google has begun testing Android 15 through two developer previews and four betas (and several sub-releases), though the final stable release is still some weeks away. Android 15’s release schedule includes beta releases going through August, and we’ve already reached the platform stability stages, meaning that no new features or APIs will be added so app developers can begin testing their apps against these public APIs. The next few sub-releases, if any, will be focused on ironing out bugs for the most part.

Google hasn’t mentioned when the stable Android 15 builds will be released. We presumed it would happen alongside the Pixel 9 series launch on August 13, 2024, but the new flagship line debuted with Android 14. Google also made no mention of its forthcoming OS. This means that Android 15’s launch window could be closer to its predecessors, but it will not coincide with a new Pixel launch as was initially anticipated.

If you use a recent Google Pixel device, you will be the first in line to receive the Android 15 update. OEMs will take a little longer to release their functional Android UX skins on top of the Android 15 platform. A few Android Partner OEMs are participating in the Android 15 Developer Preview program, and you can install Android 15 beta updates (without the OEM-specific customizations, for the most part) on select non-Pixel devices.

For those who don’t mind taking matters into their own hands, you can follow our guide and install Android 15 on your phone by yourself. If you are done testing, here’s how you can leave the Android 15 beta program without wiping your data.

Once Android 15 is released publicly, OEMs will run their own beta programs for their skins, followed by stable releases. You can check if your phone has received the update through our Android 15 update tracker.

Android 15 confirmed features, UI changes, and UX improvements

Android 15 looks quite similar to previous Android versions, but there are some notable changes that Google has introduced with this update. There are also functionality updates to several important features. All of these features have either been officially announced or have been spotted in the released Android 15 build.

Partial screen sharing

With Android 15, users can share or record just an app window rather than the entire device screen. This feature was enabled first in Android 14 QPR 2 on Pixel devices but will now be available across the wider Android platform.

Satellite connectivity support

Android 15 extends platform support for satellite connectivity. The platform now has UI elements that are needed to “ensure a consistent user experience across the satellite connectivity landscape.” As part of these changes, apps can use APIs that allow them to detect when a device is connected to a satellite, which can give the app more awareness of why full network services are unavailable.

Android 15 also provides support for SMS apps and preloaded RCS apps to use satellite connectivity for sending and receiving messages. This means that satellite connectivity will not be limited to emergency uses only. Leaks had indicated that a deeper T-Mobile tie-in would be in place for satellite connectivity features, but Google has not yet revealed such details.

New in-app camera controls

Android 15 is adding new extensions for more control over the camera hardware on supported devices. New features added through these extensions include low-light enhancements that give developers control to boost the brightness of the camera preview and advanced flash strength adjustments that enable precise control of flash intensity when capturing photos.

Universal toggle for keyboard vibration control

Android 15 Developer Preview 1 added a new “keyboard vibration” toggle that lets you universally disable keyboard vibration. When turned off, the system setting will override the setting within individual keyboard apps. When turned on, you can control the setting within individual keyboard apps, too.

Sensitive Notifications

Some forms of two-factor authentication (2FA) are safer than others, but many platforms rely on the most basic form of 2FA that sends one-time passwords (OTP) via text or email. However, Android 15 will fix that by adding a sensitive notifications feature that prevents your OTPs from being read by malicious Android apps.

Bluetooth popup dialog

Android lets you toggle Bluetooth through the Quick Settings tile, but most people leave the connection on to quickly connect to their accessories throughout the day. If you have multiple accessories around, you may find better utility with a Quick Setting tile that lets you toggle the individual connections to connect and disconnect to individual devices.

Android 15 brings this functionality, letting you click on the Bluetooth Quick Settings tile to open up a popup dialog that lets you perform more functions, such as toggling Bluetooth, connecting and disconnecting to individual devices, entering their settings page, and pairing new devices.

Auracast focus: Audio sharing to nearby Bluetooth LE Audio streams

Android 13 lets users share or connect to nearby LE Audio streams, but Android 15 could make the Auracast feature easier to discover. This would allow Auracast-supported devices to broadcast audio to nearby Auracast devices using BLE without the hassle of pairing. There is a new “audio sharing” page that appears at Settings > Connected devices > Connection preferences to facilitate this audio sharing, as spotted in Android 15 Developer Preview 2, although it isn’t working.

We managed to enable the “audio sharing” feature on the Pixel 8 Pro running Android 15 Beta 1.1. Once enabled, we could start an Auracast broadcast on the Pixel 8 Pro that other devices in the vicinity (a Galaxy S24 Ultra and a Galaxy Z Fold 5, which were part of our testing) could connect to.

We can manually set the broadcast name and password under the “stream settings” header in the “audio sharing” page. There’s also a QR code that can be generated to make it easier for others to connect to the stream.

Since Auracast is a one-way broadcast, connected devices cannot control the media playback of the source device.

You can also find and connect to nearby Auracast streams in Android 15 with some tinkering, and there may even be a button in the Quick Settings dialog for this. Since the settings stubs are live, we hope to see the feature become a permanent and functional part of Android 15.

High-Quality Webcam mode

Third-party webcam apps make it easy to use your Android phone as a webcam for your PC. Android 14 QPR 1 release for Pixel smartphones integrated the feature into the system, meaning you didn’t need a third-party app anymore. However, the output quality was pretty mediocre.

Android 15 Developer Preview 2 integrates a new High-Quality Webcam mode when you start the USB webcam feature on a Pixel device.

There is a new “HQ” symbol in the webcam preview. Tapping on it disables any power optimizations that Google made that previously resulted in lowered quality. This mode significantly improves video quality, but the drawback is increased battery drain and heat buildup.

Changes for continuity features on foldables

With Android 15, you can control whether you want to continue using apps on the front display on foldables. Mishaal Rahman notes that this feature was present on Android 14 QPR betas but was removed and is now returning. You can either have the front display turn on whenever you fold your device; have it turn on for games, videos, and other apps, or never turn it on and lock the front display when you fold your device.

If these settings feel restrictive to you, Mishaal Rahman notes that Google is also testing a “swipe up to continue” option that replaces the “only games, videos, and more” option. This mode will let you continue apps on the cover screen by swiping up on the lock screen after you fold your device.

Better cover screen support

With Android 15, app developers can declare a property to allow their app to be presented on the small cover screens of supported flippable devices. These cover screens are often too small to run full-fledged apps with a good user experience, but app developers can opt-in to support these cover displays.

Persistent taskbar for large-screen devices

Google added a taskbar dock for large-screen devices with Android 12L. It took the entire width of the screen and stayed there persisently, but this meant it took up a lot of screen space rather permanently. With Android 13, the taskbar shrunk in size to a smaller pill-shaped box, but it also became transient, appearing for a few seconds only when the user swiped up on the gesture bar. While the change was good, it also made accessing the taskbar dock a two-step process, which may not work for heavy multi-taskers.

With Android 15 Developer Preview 2, Google is giving users the option to choose the transient taskbar or to make it permanent with a new “always show taskbar” toggle.

This way, users can have the best of both worlds, suiting their needs. Android 15 Beta 2 makes it an official feature.

Circle to Search support with persistent taskbar

With the taskbar enabled on the Pixel Tablet, users could not invoke Circle to Search unless they changed back to the transient taskbar. With Android 15 Beta 3, Google added the ability to invoke Circle to Search by holding down the action key (the button in the taskbar that launches the floating app drawer).

When you boot up Android 15 Beta 3 and switch to the persistent taskbar, the launcher will even inform you that this is now possible by displaying a pop-up. The pop-up tells you to “touch & hold the action key to search what’s on your screen,” as shown below.

Health Connect

Android 15 includes updates to the Health Connect by Android platform, which adds support for new data types across fitness, nutrition, and more. Beta 2 adds skin temperature and training plans as additional data types.

Virtual MIDI 2.0 Devices

Android 13 added support for connecting to MIDI 2.0 devices via USB, which communicate using Universal MIDI Packets (UMP). Android 15 extends UMP support to virtual MIDI apps. This enables composition apps to control synthesizer apps as a virtual MIDI 2.0 device, just like they would with a USB MIDI 2.0 device.

HDR headroom control

In situations where you have some HDR content on your screen but more SDR content (for example, an HDR thumbnail while the rest of the content is in SDR), the HDR content can overpower the perceived brightness of the rest of the SDR content. Android 15 allows apps to control the HDR headroom, so they can avoid such situations.

Loudness control

Android 15 has officially introduced support for the CTA-2075 loudness standard that helps app developers avoid loudness inconsistencies and ensures users don’t have to constantly adjust volume when switching between content. The Android system leverages known characteristics of the output devices (headphones, speaker) along with loudness metadata available in the AAC audio content to “intelligently adjust the audio loudness and dynamic range compression levels.”

Edge-to-edge apps by default

Android allows apps to use the entire height and width of the display to showcase their content, but many apps do not take advantage of this. Android 15 forces apps to go edge-to-edge by default, but Google also quietly added a way for developers to opt out of this change.

Predictive Back

One of Android 14’s highlight features was supposed to be the new predictive back gesture, but the feature remained gated behind Developer Options. Google is finally graduating the feature beyond Developer Options, so system animations such as back-to-home, cross-task, and cross-activity will appear for apps that have properly migrated to this feature.

Predictive back provides a smoother, more intuitive navigation experience while using gesture navigation, leveraging built-in animations to inform users where their actions will take them, to reduce unexpected outcomes.

App Pairs to quickly launch split-screen app combos

Google is allowing large-screen device users to save their favorite split-screen app combinations for quick access. The press release does not name the feature, but the attached graphic shows a “Save app pair” option. Google also mentions it explicitly for large-screen devices and not for smaller-screen devices like phones.

From what we know, when you save an app pair, an icon is added to the home screen that shows the two apps in a saved pair configuration. Clicking on this icon will launch this app pair configuration.

New collapsible volume panel

Android 15 Beta 2 features much thicker, pill-shaped sliders in the expanded volume panel, the same that we discovered in previous builds. You can slide the slider to change volume, and you can also click on the extreme left of any pill to mute that stream or on the extreme right to raise the stream to maximum volume. This expanded volume panel also collapses, and you can do that by pressing the button next to the media stream.

Helpfully, the expanded volume panel now includes a persistent media output shortcut, which remains present there irrespective of the media playback state. There are also new animations, with the stream name text moving with the slider.

Richer Widget Previews with Generated Previews

App developers can now add personalized previews for their app’s widgets with Android 15 Beta 2. This way, when a user is at the widget selector, they will see a widget that is more representative of what the actual output would be.

Bluetooth auto-on

Google is upgrading Android’s Find My Device network to leverage the wide network of Android devices. This upgrade relies on Bluetooth beacons from participating devices to locate other nearby devices. However, if participating devices have their Bluetooth switched off, the network will lose efficacy.

Android 15 Beta 2 includes a “Bluetooth auto-on” toggle. When selected, this temporarily pauses the Bluetooth radio and switches it back on the next day instead of disabling it until the next time the user toggles it.

On iPhones, toggling Bluetooth or Wi-Fi from the Control Centre (aka the quick settings panel) merely disconnects accessories until the next day. It does not disable the radios, and both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi continue to remain available for Apple ecosystem features. To disable the radios, you need to toggle Bluetooth and Wi-Fi from the Settings app. So Google could have been partly inspired from here.

Adaptive vibration

Android 15 Beta 2 on Pixel devices includes a new Adaptive Vibration setting present in Settings > Sound & vibration > Vibration & haptics.

According to its description, adaptive vibration “automatically adjusts your phone’s vibrations based on your environment.” It does this by using your phone’s “microphone and other sensors” to “determine sound levels and context.” To preserve privacy, “no data is recorded.”

Android includes a helpful animation on the adaptive vibration page that explains what the feature does. The animation shows that, when the feature is enabled, your phone’s haptics will vibrate more intensely when your phone is on a couch and less intensely when it’s on a table. This makes sense, since the cushions on a couch can dampen your phone’s vibrations, so it needs to vibrate harder to compensate. On the other hand, your phone’s vibrations can cause other objects on a table to rustle, so reducing the intensity of the haptic motor might be necessary.

New color contrast settings

Android 15 Beta 2 adds a new “color contrast” settings page to Settings > Wallpaper & style. This page lets the user adjust the contrast of text, buttons, and icons to make them stand out more in apps.

Set Google Account photo as avatar

Android 15 Beta 2 includes a new Google Pixel Avatar App, an unbundled version of the existing avatar picker that is found in Settings > System > Multiple users. However, this app adds a new feature: the ability to use your current Google Account picture as your profile picture.

When you select your Google Account picture as your Android profile picture, your current Google Account picture is shown in the top row next to the camera and gallery icons, and it’s distinguished with a “G” logo.

Lockdown mode prevents juice jacking

Lockdown mode was introduced with Android 9 Pie in 2018. When you enter lockdown mode, your phone’s notifications are hidden, and all forms of authentication except for the user’s primary authentication (PIN, password, or pattern) are disabled.

In Android 15, Lockdown mode helps prevent juice jacking by immediately disabling USB data access.

Home controls screensaver

Android 15 Beta 3 has added a screensaver called “Home Controls” that lets you control your Google Home devices when your device is idle and charging.

This screensaver simply shows the Google Home controls that you have favorited and the current time. The UI is even the same as the one that appears in Android 14 when you set the Google Home app as Android’s Device Controls provider and open the smart home controls dashboard via the aforementioned Quick Setting tile or lock screen shortcut.

New Device Diagnostics menu in Settings app

Google has added a dedicated Device Diagnostics menu to the Settings app on Android 15, which allows you to run manual tests and check the health of your phone’s internal components. Component health lets you “run manual tests and view battery and storage health.” Evaluation mode lets you “use one device to assess another device.”

Under the Component health page, you can run a display test that shows a series of differently colored screens, making it easy to inspect the screen for defects visually. You can also run a touch test that shows a red screen turning white as you swipe your finger over it, giving an obvious indicator of where touch input may be broken. 

The Component health screen lets you check the health of your phone’s battery and storage chip. The battery status page shows you the remaining capacity of your phone’s battery as a percentage of its original capacity, the manufacturing date of your phone’s battery, its first usage date, and its charging cycle count. It also has fields for the serial number and part status. The storage status page, meanwhile, shows you the remaining lifetime of your phone’s storage chip as well as its total capacity.

Evaluation mode requires a secondary, trusted device to assess the device under evaluation. The device being assessed needs to tap Evaluated device to generate a QR code that the other device can scan. Doing so will run a series of tests on the device being evaluated, some of which require internet access. These tests consist of the same display and touch test from before. Completing these tests generates a report that can be evaluated to see if there are any issues with the device.

While the device diagnostics page doesn’t provide a lot of information or test every component, it could save some folks a lot of hassle, especially those whose issues stem from their device’s display/touch screen, battery, or storage. This feature is available to users with Android 15 Beta 4.

Hidden space-themed screen saver

Android 15 has a hidden Landroid spaceship game as an easter egg, but there’s also a second easter egg in the form of a new Landroid screensaver (h/t Dylan Roussel). This becomes available after you access the spaceship game for the first time on Android 15. The screen saver mimics the game, with the little spacecraft visiting planets and landing on them.

Smaller changes

There are a few smaller changes as well that have been either announced by Google officially or spotted on Android 15 builds so far:

• There is haptic feedback when adjusting the display brightness through the Quick Settings slider (h/t Mishaal Rahman).
• New APIs allow smoother NFC experiences by allowing devices to listen but not respond to NFC readers. In some cases, this would allow for a one-tap transaction.
• Android has a new PDFRenderer API, which allows apps to render password-protected PDF files and annotations, as well as form editing, searching, and selection with copy.
• The Pixel Launcher has a new “apps list settings” page that contains the “swipe to start search” settings toggle (h/t Mishaal Rahman).
  • Android 15 Beta 3 houses a new “show long app names” setting that lets you display long app names on two lines in the search results and apps list.
• New accessibility settings for use with physical keyboards: You can enable Sticky keys, Slow keys, and Bounce keys when you are using a physical keyboard on a device with Android 15. This feature will be useful for users with motor disabilities and those who face difficulties typing on a physical keyboard.
  • Sticky keys make it easier to enter keyboard shortcuts in quick succession.
  • Slow keys hold down the duration that the user has to press before the system accepts a keypress.
  • Bounce keys help ignore rapid, repeated presses of the same key.
• Android 15 also shows a preview of the keyboard layout that you select in physical keyboard settings, in case your physical keyboard has a different physical layout.
• Android TalkBack is gaining support for Braille displays, which use human interface devices over USB and Bluetooth to improve accessibility.
• You can now set a wallet app as a default, allowing you to set something other than Google Wallet as your default wallet service.
• The Android system now lets you set how it addresses you in gendered languages, starting with French.
• Android 15 Beta 2 includes API-related updates from ICU 74. ICU 74 contains updates from Unicode 15.1, including new characters, emoji, security mechanisms, and corresponding APIs and implementations. It also includes updates to CLDR 44 locale data with new locales and various additions and corrections.
• The font file for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages, aka the NotoSansCJK, is now a variable font, allowing many weight and other variations.
• There is a new font file for old Japanese Hiragana called Japanese Hentaigana.
• Android 15 Beta 2 supports setting rich vibrations for incoming notifications by channel. This allows users to distinguish between different types of notifications without having to look at their devices.
• The USB debugging/Android System icon has been updated in Android 15 Beta 2 (h/t Mishaal Rahman). The upside-down logo has been replaced with a V shape to reflect the internal dessert name, Vanilla Ice Cream.
• In Android 15 Beta 2, under Settings > Storage, there’s no longer a “System” option. Instead, there’s a “System” header that splits into the “OS” and “temporary system files.” This may somewhat reduce confusion about how much space system files take up. Unrecognized files will still be seen as “temporary system files,” though (h/t Mishaal Rahman).
• Android 15 Beta 2 makes it easier to understand your storage, as it splits the broad “System” category into an “OS” category and a “Temporary system files” category (h/t Mishaal Rahman).
• Android 15 Beta 2 brings back the ability for Pixel devices to control the volume of Google Home speaker groups while casting.
• Killing an app by force-stopping it will now also temporarily disable its home screen widget. The widgets will also be grayed out on the home screen and won’t restart until you manually launch the app again, directly or indirectly.
• Android 15 Beta 3 adds single-step passkey support that allows app developers to easily incorporate biometric security (fingerprint or face unlock) for signing into their apps.
• Android 15 Beta 4 tweaks the battery widget’s UI on Pixel devices to integrate Material You’s Dynamic Coloring.

Android 15 performance improvements

Improvements to the Android Dynamic Performance Framework

Android 15 continues work in the Android Dynamic Performance Framework (ADPF). ADPF is a set of APIs that allow games and performance-intensive apps to interact more directly with the power and thermal systems of Android devices. With these APIs, you can monitor system behavior better and then go a step further to optimize performance to a sustainable level that doesn’t overheat devices.

ADPF consists of these main features:

• Thermal-state monitoring
• CPU performance hints
• Fixed-performance mode

On supported devices, Android 15 will add new ADPF capabilities, namely:

• A power efficiency mode for hint sessions to indicate that their associated threads should prefer power saving over performance. This is said to be good for long-running background workloads.
• Hint sessions can now report CPU and GPU work durations, allowing the system to adjust CPU and GPU frequencies together to best meet workload demands.
• New thermal headroom thresholds to interpret possible thermal throttling status based on headroom prediction.

App and game developers can use these APIs to make their apps and games work better on devices that would support these APIs.

App archiving through Settings

iOS has a handy feature that lets you “offload apps” to reclaim some storage space. You can uninstall apps you use rarely but keep the user data around. So when you reinstall the app, you can get back where you left off.

With Android 15 Developer Preview 2, Google baked in a similar app archiving feature. It then formally announced the feature with the launch of the first Android 15 beta, all but assuring us that this feature will launch.

When an app is archived on Android, most of its working files will be removed, while a stripped-down version of the app will be retained. There will be a home screen icon which, when clicked, will trigger the Google Play Store to unarchive the app.

Google already lets you opt into auto-archiving through the Google Play Store. Since the feature is run through the Play Store, you cannot archive or unarchive apps through your phone’s Settings app.

Android 15 changes this behavior by adding a new Archive and Restore button on the App Info page.

This way, even apps installed from outside of the Play Store could be archived from an easily accessible location.

Here is a good demo of how the app archive feature within the Android system works.

In this demo, an app that is 387MB in size has been archived to just 18MB in size, a staggering 95% decrease. After the archive, the app was restored to show that none of the user data was lost in the process.

Android 15 will not only let you manually archive apps but also let you choose whether to have the OS automatically archive apps that you do not use often. Further, other app stores beyond the Google Play Store will also be able to get the feature working if they support the necessary app formats.

Locking WebView into memory

Android 15 is locking into memory the trichrome library that Android System WebView uses, with the release of Developer Preview 1. Many apps use Android System WebView to display internet content, as it helps them avoid building a web browser from scratch for such a task. Since the process is locked into memory, the Android system will deprioritize killing the process during regular RAM management operations.

In theory, apps that rely on WebView could see a marginal improvement in their performance to the extent of their use of WebView, especially on devices with less RAM where processes are more frequently purged from RAM.

ANGLE: Optional layer for running OpenGL ES on top of Vulkan

OpenGL and Vulkan are the two popular graphics APIs currently in use, while OpenGL ES is the variant used on embedded systems like mobile devices. Most popular Android games now use Vulkan for its superior features and performance, but some legacy games still use OpenGL ES for some of their rendering tasks.

Vulkan is Android’s preferred interface to the GPU and will remain so. Therefore, with Android 15 Beta 2, Google includes ANGLE, a translation layer that converts OpenGL ES API calls to Vulkan.

ANGLE will also become the default driver on many 2025 devices for OpenGL ES interfacing, and beyond 2026, it will be the only way available.

Google clarifies that it plans to continue supporting OpenGL ES on all devices, but it strongly encourages the use of Vulkan for new projects.

More efficient AV1 software decoding

dav1d, the popular AV1 software decoder from VideoLAN is now available for Android devices not supporting AV1 decode in hardware. It is said to be up to 3x more performant than the legacy AV1 software decoder, enabling HD AV1 playback for more users, including some low and mid-tier devices.

For now, Google says that apps need to opt-in to using dav1d by invoking it with the name “c2.android.av1-dav1d.decoder.” Subsequent updates will make it the default AV1 software decoder. This support is standardized and backported to Android 11 devices that receive Google Play system updates, so it’s not a part of Android 15 per-se, but was announced in the Beta 2 announcement.

Better standby battery life

At Google I/O, Dave Burke, VP of Engineering for the Android Platform, mentioned in an interview that in Android 15, Google has sped up the time to doze by 50%. This means that devices running Android 15 will enter doze mode 50% faster than they do in Android 14. The result is an improvement in standby battery life, up to three hours on some devices that Google tested.

Android tries to intelligently defer and run as many background tasks at the same time during select ‘maintenance windows’ while the device is in a state where it’s been idle for a period of time and its screen is off. This state — called doze mode — has been a core feature of Android’s power management system since Android 6.0.

This change will extend to all devices that get updated to Android 15, including alternate platforms beyond smartphones.

Smaller changes

• Android 15 has new APIs that allow apps to track their app startup and stop state, display their detailed app size information, and more.
• There is a new “disable default frame rate for games” setting in Developer Options that disables limiting the maximum frame rate for games at 60Hz.
• Apps optimized for Android 15 will now be edge-to-edge by default. This means that developers won’t have to call on additional classes to show their content beyond system bars.
• Android 15 Beta 2 allows app developers to quickly toggle the visibility of irrelevant UI elements for a PiP window, ensuring a smoother and flicker-free PiP entry animation.
• Two common foreground service types now have a ~6-hour timeout, after which the service is no longer considered a foreground service. Further, Beta 2 also now requires apps to have a visible overlay if it is attempting to start a foreground service with a permission exemption for background start.
• Android 15 adds support for devices that use larger page sizes, including 16 KB pages in addition to the standard 4 KB pages. Devices with larger page sizes can have improved performance for memory-intensive workloads.

Android 15 privacy and security features

Privacy Sandbox on Android

One of the highlights of the Android 15 update is that it incorporates the latest version of the Privacy Sandbox on Android.

Privacy Sandbox on Android is a multi-year initiative from Google that introduces more private advertising solutions that limit the sharing of user data with third parties and operate without cross-app identifiers. The goal here is to develop an effective and privacy-enhancing advertising solution where user information is protected. This is needed to cultivate a healthy app ecosystem, which is needed for the overall health of the Android platform.

File integrity

Android 15 introduces a new FileIntegrityManager API that uses a feature called “fs-verity” in the Linux kernel. With fs-verity, files can be protected by custom cryptographic signatures, ensuring that they do not get tampered with or corrupted. So app developers can rest easy knowing that their app functionality and data are not compromised in any way.

Screen record detection

Android 15 will allow apps to detect when they are being screen-recorded. For apps that perform sensitive operations, developers can invoke APIs to allow the content to be hidden within such screen recordings.

End-to-end encryption of contact keys

The first beta introduced an OS-level API that provides end-to-end encryption for contact keys. This feature allows the user to manage and verify other people’s contact information securely.

As we learned in an APK teardown, the Contact Keys feature will rely heavily on the Google Contacts app for its UX. Users who want to confirm that all their E2E apps are actually encrypted can scan the QR code present on the other person’s Google Contacts app. Alternatively, you could also compare the app-specific numbers instead to reassure yourself about the encryption status.

Apple has a similar feature on iOS called Contact Key Verification, which was added in iOS 17.2. Contact Key Verification lets you receive automatic alerts that help verify that you are communicating only with the people you intend to communicate with. By verifying the encryption status, you can reassure yourself that you are not being targeted by any sophisticated cyber attack.

Private Space

We discovered Private Space a long time back as an upcoming Android 15 feature, and even showed off a hands-on of Private Space at the time. With Android 15 Beta 2, Google is officially announcing Private Space as a feature. The feature appears to be similar to Samsung’s Secure Folder, removing the need to use third-party apps to hide other apps on your Android phone.

Private space allows users to create a separate space for sensitive apps on their device, protecting these apps with an additional layer of authentication. This feature uses a separate user profile which is paused (and the apps are no longer active) when the private space is locked. The user can choose to use the device lock or a separate lock factor for private space. The feature is available at Settings > Security & privacy > Private space.

Private space apps appear in a separate container in the launcher. When the space is locked, the apps are hidden from recent view, notifications, settings, and other apps. Further, user-generated and downloaded content and accounts are separated between the private space and the main space. The system share sheet and the photo picker can be used to give apps access to content across spaces when private space is unlocked.

As we know from previous hands-on, users will be able to automatically lock their private space, change the screen lock, automatically hide private space from appearing in the app list, make sensitive notifications appear on the lock screen when private space is unlocked, or delete the private space. You can also quickly install an app in your private space through the Pixel Launcher by tapping on a button in your primary profile.

Target SDK version raised, making older Android Marshmallow apps incompatible

Google introduces new APIs and features with every Android release and banks on developers keeping their apps updated with these new APIs and best practices. However, older apps still exist, and developers may not be keen to keep them updated for various reasons. Regular users still need to be protected against the drawbacks of outdated APIs, so the Google Play Store hides older apps from users. Users could still sideload them, but Android 14 began blocking sideloading apps that were built for Android 6.0 Marshmallow, i.e. with a target SDK version 23.

With Android 15 Beta 2, Google has raised this target SDK version to 24. This means that apps targeting APIs for Android 6.0 Marshmallow will not be easy to install, and you’d need to default to apps built for Android 7.0 Nougat at least.

Smaller changes

• On Android 15, you now have to authenticate your identity using the fingerprint sensor or other lock screen security options if you want to change the USB mode on your phone when it is connected to a computer.
• If you head to Settings > Security & privacy > More security & privacy, you can toggle on two new security features: “security notifications” and “require encryption.” These will help protect you against “stingray” hacks. You can find out more about this in our deep dive into Android 15’s anti-stingray protections.
• WEP is an older security protocol for Wi-Fi that is not as secure as modern methods. Android 15 will put a toggle at Settings > Network & Internet > Internet > Network preferences that will allow you to disable connections to networks that use WEP.
• Malicious apps within the same task can launch another app’s activity and then overlay themselves on top, creating the illusion of being that app. This “task hijacking” attack bypasses current background launch restrictions because it all occurs within the same visible task. To mitigate this risk, Google has added a flag in Android 15 Beta 2 that blocks apps that don’t match the top UID on the stack from launching activities.
• With Android 15 Beta 2, apps can now highlight only the most recently selected photos and videos when partial access to media permissions is granted. This can improve the user experience for apps that frequently request access to photos and videos.

Android 15: Leaked and upcoming features

In addition to all the features that Google has officially announced, and those that have been spotted in the Android 15 Developer Preview and Beta builds, there are plenty of changes that have been leaked and are rumored to arrive on Android 15.

Satellite Messaging with T-Mobile

Google has confirmed that satellite messaging support is coming to Android 15. However, we don’t know much about how this will actually work. Based on what we know so far, T-Mobile (in conjunction with partner Starlink) might offer a paid subscription that would allow you to send satellite messages natively in the Messages app. These messages would work anywhere as long as you have a view of the open sky. Even if there are zero cell towers around, you could still text with your friends (for a price).

This is what the Satellite Messaging page within Android 15 looks like as it went live for some Pixel users on T-Mobile:

While recent iPhones have access to free satellite messaging, they can only be used in emergencies to contact help. Android users being able to use them for whatever they want would be a major win. We’re waiting for the satellite pointing UI to go live, which is expected closer to when the Pixel 9 launches later in the year.

Revamped status bar with new icons and haptics

Google could refresh Android’s status bar icons with a new look and add haptic feedback to the Quick Settings and volume panels. The changes are not live yet.

With Android 15, some of the status bar icons may feature a segmented design. The battery icon may also finally support showing the current battery level inside the icon rather than to the right of it.

The charging chip which appears when you plug in your device is also being updated.

Users will be able to disable the battery level if they don’t like it. Here is what it will look like without the battery level.

Android 15 may also add haptic feedback to the Quick Settings panel, such as when users long-press on tiles such as the Bluetooth tile. There will also be some haptic feedback when moving the volume slider to adjust the volume stream.

Reorganized Settings app

We expect the Settings app on Android 15 to be reorganized, with several top-level menu items being placed next to each other in visually distinct sections.

For reference, here’s the order of entries of the top-level settings page in Android 14 on Pixel phones, next to how the top-level settings page might be arranged in a future Android 15 release:

Here are screenshots showing the top-level settings in Android 14 next to a mockup of what we believe the top-level settings page will look like in an upcoming Android 15 release.

This should be more logical for users to follow.

Optimized landscape layouts for lockscreen and notification panel on phones

Android phones are primarily meant for portrait orientations, and the Android UI is optimized for that purpose. When you attempt to use a phone in landscape orientation, you will notice elements like the notification panel poorly using space, while the lockscreen will refuse to rotate.

We managed to enable an optimized landscape layout for the notification panel and lockscreen in Android 15 for use on phones. The optimized notification panel on Android 15 looks like a shrunk-down version of the same on tablets, with a lot less wasted space.

Similarly, the optimized landscape mode layout for phones’ lock screens looks similar to the one for tablets.

These layouts are still buggy and unfinished, but they are quite evidently improvements over Android 14.

Notification cooldown

There’s a new function within the Notifications section called “Notification cooldown.” It lowers the volume of successive notifications from the same app. It’s designed to prevent users from being overwhelmed by too many notifications.

While we spotted this feature in the first Android 15 Developer Preview, the first beta hid the feature below the surface. It’s possible Google wants to let this feature cook a bit longer before releasing it to the public.

In newer builds, we also spotted a new toggle called “vibrate when unlocked.” According to the description, this toggle makes it so your phone will “only vibrate when [the] screen is unlocked.”

In other words, enabling this toggle should prevent your phone from vibrating in your pocket when you receive a ton of successive notifications from the same app.

Compact heads-up notification

Google introduced heads-up notifications with Android 5.0 Lollipop in 2014. These notifications appear in a floating window at the top of the screen and can be immediately seen and acted upon, regardless of the app you’re using. This notification style is meant for high-priority notifications, but they can get quite distracting when they appear over a full-screen app.

Android lets you opt out of heads-up notifications on a per-channel basis, and you can use ADB to disable them entirely on many Android versions. However, if you’re only bothered by their distracting size when using a full-screen app, then Google has another solution for you: Compact heads-up notifications.

We found clues for these in the Android 15 Beta 4 release and managed to enable the compact heads-up notification feature.

You can see the compact layout in the second set of notifications. This change is not live yet in Android 15, and since it was spotted after the platform stability phase, it is unlikely to ship with Android 15 at launch. Instead, it could come with a future Android 15 QPR release, or even get pushed to Android 16.

Lock screen widgets for tablets, At a Glance widget for phones

Android supported lock screen widgets with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, but the feature was killed off in Android 5.0 Lollipop. Since iOS brought lock screen widgets with iOS 16, Android will bring widgets back to the lock screen with Android 15.

However, recent evidence suggests this will only apply to tablets, and possibly only the Pixel Tablet. We need more information to be certain, but that’s the way things are looking right now.

The lockscreen widget has also evolved with newer Android 15 betas, as Google fixed two major issues. The first major issue was that certain lock screen UI elements, like the clock, were overlaid on top of the widgets page, visually obstructing some of your widgets. The second issue was that the widgets couldn’t be interacted with, meaning they were only useful if they showed relevant information at a glance. Both of these were fixed with Android 15 Beta 3 release.

As you can see in the video, there’s now a long, vertical pill on the right edge that’s similar in size and color to the navigation pill. This serves as a visual indicator that you can swipe inward on the right edge. Swiping inward reveals that the lock screen and glanceable hub no longer visually overlap. By default, the only button that appears on the glanceable hub is a button to change the current profile; the button to customize the glanceable hub is only shown when you long press on an empty space.

Up to six widgets can be shown on a single page at a time, though since the glanceable hub is horizontally scrollable, you can add more widgets than that. You still can’t resize widgets, unfortunately, but you can interact with them.

For phones, it seems Google is taking some inspiration from iOS’ Live Activities and giving Android a similar implementation. There are plenty of challenges involved, but the At a Glance widget could be the widget of choice on the lockscreen of Android phones.

As you can see above, we managed to activate the At a Glance widget on the lockscreen on Android 15 with some tinkering. We also got it to appear at the bottom, which is where it looks very Live Activity-like. The lockscreen does appear very busy with the widget enabled, so there is a lot of cleanup and testing that Google needs to do to bring widgets back to phone lockscreens. Consequently, there’s a chance phones get their lockscreen widgets with Android 16.

There’s no evidence of Google considering lockscreen widgets for phones. However, we managed to activate lockscreen widgets on an Android 15 phone anyway, and this is what it looks like:

“Tiny” taskbar for phones

Android’s taskbar is largely accessible to foldables and tablets, but Google is also working on a version that could be accessible to smaller-screen devices, such as smartphones. We spotted the tiny taskbar in Android 15 Beta 4 and managed to activate it.

The tiny taskbar looks and behaves the same as the taskbar for large-screen devices. Since the feature was spotted after Android 15 reached platform stability, it may be included in a future Android 15 QPR release.

Battery health percentage

Android 14 laid the groundwork for the OS to track battery health information, while Android 15 could make battery health information accessible to users. The OS could show the estimated percentage of charge your phone’s battery can currently hold compared to when it was new. This would give users a clearer idea of how far their battery has degraded.

There are many variables involved in this feature’s release, though we cross our fingers and remain optimistic. iPhones already report their battery health in an easy-to-read manner, and that information has been valuable to users in deciding the condition of pre-owned units and whether they should get their batteries replaced.

Storage chip health

In addition to battery health information, Android 15 is also preparing a new feature that will tell users the remaining lifetime of their device’s internal storage. Under the hood, the Device Diagnostics app will utilize a new storage lifetime API in Android 15 that “returns the remaining lifetime of the internal storage device, as an integer percentage.”

However, only some devices are expected to report the remaining storage lifetime with 1% granularity. Most will report it at a less accurate 10% granularity, if at all they support the feature (as Google doesn’t require devices to support it).

Powered Off Finding API will let you find devices even when they are switched off

Android 15 will add the new Powered Off Finding API, which will enable powered-off finding across compatible Android devices, according to a report. These APIs would be contained within the Project Mainline module called “Tethering,” which can only be used on devices running Android 15. Further, this API will be utilized by the upgraded Find My Device network, which will be rolled out through Google Play Services.

What Powered Off Finding API does is that it allows a device to fire off precomputed Bluetooth beacons, even when the device is off (presuming there is some reserve power available for this action). With these Bluetooth beacons, nearby Android devices will be able to help track the switched-off device, similar to how iPhones can be tracked when they are powered off.

This feature would need hardware support to allow the Bluetooth controller to work when the rest of the device is powered off. The feature also requires the phone to support the Bluetooth Finder HAL so that Android can enable Powered Off Finding mode.

The feature is expected to debut with the Google Pixel 9, but it could also make its way to the Pixel 8 series as the devices include the necessary hardware.

Voice activation feature for digital assistants

Android allows any app to become the default assistant app on your device, but it doesn’t let them use wake words like “Hey Google” in the background. Your phone would have to constantly listen to audio through the microphone in order to pick up the designated wake word.

Android 15 could introduce a new feature called “voice activation” that could use a privacy-preserving “adaptive sensing” technology to let other digital assistant apps use wake words.

Previous versions of Android allowed wake word detection, but Google removed the feature with Android 12. This upcoming feature could bring back the functionality, letting apps like ChatGPT and Amazon Alexa become accessible with a wake word, even when your phone’s screen is off. Pre-Android 15, only Google Assistant and Bixby on Samsung phones allow for hands-free voice activation through a wake word.

Desktop mode: Enhanced windowing capabilities

With Android 15, Google could improve the windowing capabilities of Android’s desktop mode. In desktop mode, app windows could get a small handle that will show a small menu. This menu will contain the app’s name and icon, as well as three buttons to open the window in full-screen, split-screen, or freeform mode.

In freeform mode, the app will get a title bar that shows the app’s name and icon, a dropdown to open the menu to change the windowing mode, a maximize button, and a close button. The window can be freely moved around and resized. Resizing the window temporarily hides the app’s content to make it easier to see the window as it’s being resized. Windows can be dragged to the left or right edge to snap them to that half. Once an app is full-screened, you can drag instead of tap the handle at the top to quickly turn the window into a freeform or split-screen one.

Independent desktop mode for tablets

Desktop mode allows the smartphone to launch freeform windows and other extended capabilities when the phone is connected to an external display. Google is also working on an independent desktop mode for tablets that doesn’t require them to connect to an external display.

As you can see in the video, a new “desktop” button can appear when you tap the dropdown menu in the recents screen. Tapping the “desktop” button launches the app in a freeform window in Android’s desktop mode environment. Here, the window can be moved, snapped to the side, resized, minimized, maximized, or joined by other app windows.

When the desktop mode is active, and you return to the home screen, you can reenter the environment by tapping on the “desktop” card in the recents screen or by opening an app, expanding its window caption, and then tapping on the button to launch it in a freeform window.

This feature was spotted in Android 15 Beta 4.1, so it’s not coming with stable Android 15 at least. It could make its way to a future Android 15 QPR or be pushed to Android 16.

New Pixel Launcher features

Google is preparing a bunch of changes specifically for the Pixel Launcher with the Android 15 update. These are the new features coming to the Pixel Launcher with Android 15:

• New animation when swiping up on an app to return to the home screen.
• Better widget recommendations across recommendation categories: Essentials, Social, Entertainment, Health and Fitness, News and magazines, Weather, Suggested for You, and Your Chill Zone.
• A “+ Add” button in the widget selector to make it easier to add widgets to home screen.
• A new pill in the Recents menu opens shortcuts for the app, namely the app info page, entering split screen mode, and pausing an app.
• The ability to stop app names from being truncated and show long app names.
• The ability to use Circle to Search when using apps in split screen mode.

These changes have been spotted through feature flags. There is a chance that not all of them will make it to Android 15. It also remains to be seen how many of them get carried over to the AOSP Launcher as the Pixel Launcher is Pixel-specific.

Google AI features for the Pixel 9

Google is planning to launch Google AI features with the Pixel 9 and debut them with Android 15. However, these features aren’t likely to come to the Android platform at large.

Google AI will include existing AI features such as Circle to Search and Gemini, but it will also include new features such as Add Me, Studio, and Pixel Screenshots.

Easy pre-set mode to improve readability and ease of navigation

Strings within past Android builds indicate that Google has been working on a feature called “easy pre-set mode,” which could arrive with Android 15’s later releases.

Easy pre-set mode could optimize the Android experience for improved readability and ease of navigation. It would do so by enlarging icons and text, adding contrast and boldness, and adding navigation buttons to the bottom of the screen. It would also set the current wallpaper to a black color, so you can have an easier time figuring out your icons and icon labels. A feature like this would be very handy for elderly or less tech-savvy users as it would make it easier to use the phone.

Headphone loud sound alerts

This feature was intended for Android 14 but arrived with Android 14 QPR 1 (h/t Mishaal Rahman) on Pixel devices. As such, the changes it introduces are expected to be available for the wider Android platform with the Android 15 release.

This new feature monitors sound doses over time to protect users from the damaging effects of excessive or prolonged sound exposure. It complies with regulatory requirements in the EU and is also different from the safe media volume limit feature (which focuses on a fixed volume). The new feature warns when the music is playing loudly (volume measured through the audio signal) for a while.

Adaptive timeout for screen timeout

We’ve spotted code within Android 15 that indicates that Google is also working on an adaptive timeout feature for the upcoming Android release. This feature will automatically turn off your phone’s screen early if you are not using your device. With adaptive timeout, you may be able to set an extended screen timeout and still enjoy the security and battery benefits of a shorter timeout when you are not using your phone.

It is not immediately clear how the feature will be implemented. There’s a chance that this feature doesn’t make it to AOSP but gets reserved for Pixel UI.

Adaptive Touch for Pixel devices

Google could debut the Pixel 9 with Android 15 and a new Adaptive Touch setting for the display sensitivity. When Adaptive Touch is enabled, “touch sensitivity will automatically adjust to your environment, activities, and screen protector.”

It’s not quite clear yet what environmental factors or activities will cause the touch sensitivity to be automatically adjusted, but it’s possible that wet fingers (or a wet screen) will be one factor.

We don’t know if Adaptive Touch will remain a Pixel 9 exclusive or trickle down to older devices.

“Even dimmer” display brightness

Android 15 could include an “even dimmer” display brightness option. As the name suggests, this setting toggle would allow your phone’s display to go dimmer than usual. This feature could work alongside adaptive brightness, going even dimmer than usual when the ambient lighting is super low but automatically returning to normal brightness when the ambient lighting is high.

This feature is likely going to replace the Extra Dim feature that users can toggle. The key difference between the two is that Even Dimmer is meant to be toggled and forgotten as the adaptive brightness will take care of the dimming, while Extra Dim is a manual toggle for going lower in brightness.

NFC wireless charging

Android 15 could introduce support for NFC wireless charging. NFC wireless charging works with significantly smaller antennas than Qi wireless charging. It is ideal for tiny smart devices like earbuds, styluses, smartwatches, and tracker tags, though the devices will need to feature an antenna that manages both communication and charging.

Hide unused notification channels by default

Notification channels are categories of notifications that an app can deliver. App developers can create channels for the various types of notifications that their app serves, and users can be selective about the channels they allow notifications from.

However, app developers can decide how many notification channels their app needs, and there are situations where they create too many channels. To combat this, Android 15 could hide unused notification channels by default. A three-dot menu button will house a new “show unused channels” option that you can use to showcase the unused channels.

You can see how much cleaner figuring out notification channels gets when you hide the unused notification channels.

Selectively hide sensitive content when screensharing

In addition to letting apps know about screenshots, screen recordings, and screenshares and allowing partial screen recordings, Android 15 could also prevent apps from leaking sensitive information. There is a new feature internally called “sensitive content protection.” With this, apps that display sensitive information only occasionally can selectively block those fields from appearing in screen shares and recordings rather than disabling screenshots, screen shares, and recordings entirely.

Force apps to go dark mode

Android 10 introduced an “override force-dark” toggle under Settings > System > Developer options. Android 14’s QPR builds introduced a new (but hidden) “make all apps dark” toggle under Settings > Accessibility > Color and motion. This toggle works differently from the older toggle, and it remains present in Android 15 beta builds.

The older option was a developer-oriented feature, and apps could opt out of it just like many did. The newer option is an accessibility-oriented feature and is thus intended for consumers.

Here’s a gallery that compares the UI of several apps without a built-in dark theme in their original state, with dark mode plus “override force-dark” enabled, and with dark mode plus “make all apps dark” enabled.

As you can see, “make all apps dark” isn’t perfect, as it still reduces the contrast of certain buttons, but it does handle certain apps like Fitbit and Orangetheory much better than “override force-dark.”

Color correction slider

Android offers a dedicated page for color correction settings, present at Settings > Accessibility > Color and motion. Here, color-blind users can toggle one of Android’s several color correction modes, which each compensate for various degrees of color blindness. You can choose between the various color correction profiles to alter how your phone’s display displays the color to you.

With Android 15, your phone could also show a color correction intensity slider, letting you switch between low, medium, and high intensity of correction.

This will help tune the color balance changes for the active color correction mode.

Delete your biometrics if they aren’t working well

Android phones can be found across a variety of budgets, and one of the issues that prominently crop up because of this variety of hardware is that the Android OEM may have opted for a sub-optimal biometric sensor (fingerprint scanner or facial recognition system). Software updates also sometimes mess up success rates, and one of the most common recommendations to users to fix the poor performance of their biometric authentication system is to re-enroll their fingerprints or rescan their face.

Android 15 could proactively help users who are facing poorly performing biometrics by automatically detecting when your face or fingerprint models aren’t working well, deleting them, and then prompting you to set them up again. Android 15 will show a notification saying that your face or fingerprint model “wasn’t working well and was deleted. Set it up again to unlock your phone” with your face or fingerprint. Since Android only lets you enroll a single face, the notification that’s shown for re-enrolling your face will be slightly different than the one shown for re-enrolling your fingerprint, but there’s no functional difference.

Change the definition of fast charging from 7.5W to 20W

The way Android determines whether a charger is “slow,” “normal,” or “fast” is quite simple. Android, through the health HAL, receives information from the battery and charging circuitry, such as the current and voltage.

If the power (which is determined by multiplying current times voltage) that’s being delivered to the phone is below 5W, then the charger is considered “slow,” and the message “charging slowly” is shown on the lock screen. If the power is above 7.5W, then it’s considered “fast,” and the “charging rapidly” message is shown instead. If the power is between 5 and 7.5W, then the charger is seen as “normal,” and the lock screen simply says the phone is “charging.”

OEMs can configure these values for their phones, but Google hasn’t yet changed them for Pixels. The company could do that with Android 15, as there is a new fast-charging configuration that upgrades the charging rapidly status from 7.5W to 20W.

Changes to the Setup Wizard

As we spotted in an APK teardown, the Google Setup Wizard could soon present activation screens for Quick Share. Pixel users will also be able to set up Satellite messaging, car crash detection, and Moment.

Use Wear OS device to change the media output device

Starting with Android 15, companion apps for Wear OS devices can be granted a new platform permission called MEDIA_ROUTING_CONTROL. This permission allows “watches (via companion apps) to control the routing of applications running on the phone.”

In simpler terms, this permission allows the watch companion app on your phone to change which device to output audio to, even if that audio is coming from another app. Your Wear OS smartwatch may also need an update to add a screen that interfaces with the watch companion app on your phone, so some things are still in the air.

New Camera2 Extensions API: Eyes Free videography

All Android camera apps are built on top of Android’s Camera2 API, while the Camera2 Extensions API provides a way for camera apps to access extensions that OEMs have implemented on their devices.

As of Android 14, the Camera2 Extensions API supports the following five types of extensions:

1. Auto: “adjusts the extension mode according to the current scene background”
2. Bokeh: “sharpens the foreground subject and blurs the background”
3. Face retouch: “touches up skin texture, under-eye tone, and more”
4. HDR: “widens exposure range, resulting in more vivid photos”
5. Night: “brightens photos in low-light situations”

The availability of these extensions varies by device and brand. All five extensions can only be used during image captures and previews, but not during video recordings.

Android 15 could introduce a new Eyes Free videography extension that can be used during video capture. According to its description in AOSP, this sixth Camera2 extension “aims to lock and stabilize a given region or object of interest.” This extension could let third-party apps that use the Camera2 API (like Snapchat) utilize this video stabilization algorithm.

The availability of the extension on your device will depend on the OEM, though. Even if OEMs don’t implement Android 15’s new Eyes Free videography extension, the operating system might deploy a software implementation that third-party camera apps can utilize.

Under Settings > Security & privacy > More security & privacy, there is a new “allow camera software extensions” toggle that “enables the default software implementation of advanced camera features, such as Eyes Free videography.” While the Android default implementation of Eyes Free videography might not be as good as the OEM’s for a given device, it’ll still ensure this feature is made available to third-party camera apps that look for it.

Cloud search support for Android’s Photo Picker

During the second day of Google I/O 2024, Google confirmed that Android’s Photo Picker will support both local and cloud search. This is coming “later this year,” apparently, but we don’t know exactly when.

When search support rolls out, it’ll hopefully be available on all OS versions where the Photo Picker is available. The Photo Picker is available natively on all devices running Android 11 and newer through a Project Mainline module, but it’s also available on devices running Android 4.4 and newer thanks to Google Play Services.

Enhanced Confirmation Mode

Enhanced Confirmation Mode in Android 15 builds upon Android 13’s Restricted Settings feature. Enhanced Confirmation Mode checks an allowlist that’s preloaded in the factory image, exempting packages and installers mentioned therein as “trusted packages.” Trusted packages can, in turn, install apps that are eligible to be exempt from any restrictions on being granted Android’s Accessibility or Notification Listener services (which Android 13 marked as Restricted Settings).

This feature essentially closes a loophole that Android 13’s Restricted Settings brought about.

New screen magnification gesture

Android has a screen magnification feature that zooms in on the screen to make elements easier to see. It’s found under Settings > Accessibility > Magnification (at least on Pixel devices) and can be set up to magnify either the entire screen or a specific area of interest. You can activate it through three methods found under the “magnification shortcut” submenu: an on-screen accessibility button, a gesture that involves pressing and holding down both volume keys, and a gesture that involves quickly tapping the screen three times.

The first method is the most convenient but takes up part of the screen and always magnifies the center. The second method doesn’t take up space on-screen but has the longest activation time. The third method is really convenient and also lets you zoom in on the exact part of the screen you want to magnify, but it also slows down your device since Android has to add a delay to every screen tap.

Android 15 will introduce a fourth method to enable screen magnification. Users will be able to quickly tap the screen two times with two fingers to zoom in.

This toggle is shown above the collapsed-by-default “advanced” dropdown, which currently contains the “triple-tap screen” shortcut.

Google likely hid the triple-tap screen shortcut under a dropdown because it slows down other tap inputs, as mentioned before. Its description even warns that “this shortcut may slow down your device.” Interestingly, this text is missing from the description for the two-finger double-tap screen shortcut, suggesting it won’t slow down your device. However, in our brief testing, we noticed that there’s still a slight delay in screen taps when it’s enabled.

Thread network stack to connect to smart devices over Matter

If you own a smart home, chances are that you already know about Matter and Thread. Smart devices that can control other smart home devices need a Thread radio to communicate over Matter, but these Thread radios aren’t built into many devices yet, as opposed to Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

Devices like the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max became the first smartphones to ship with an included Thread radio. Android devices will soon be joining the bandwagon with Android 15’s Thread network stack for Thread radio-included devices.

Phones running Android 15 that have a Thread radio, ship Android’s Thread network stack, and declare the feature flag indicating the device supports Thread will have a “Use Thread” toggle under Settings > Connected devices > Connection preferences > Thread.

Enabling Thread network support on a phone running Android 15 will allow that device to directly communicate with other Thread network devices, without the need for a separate Thread border router (like a Google TV device) to facilitate the communication. This could speed up certain smart home actions or even enable them to be run locally.

Opening up Bedtime Mode-related APIs to third-party apps

Google’s Digital Wellbeing app has a dedicated bedtime mode that silences your phones and changes various screen options to encourage you to stop using your phone based on a time-based trigger. Google is giving third-party apps access to the bedtime mode APIs with Android 15, giving them the ability to change distracting screen options and opening up an avenue for developers to let users create an even more custom bedtime mode routine.

With the release of Android 15 Developer Preview 2, Google introduced a new publicly available API called ZenDeviceEffects API that lets apps dim the wallpaper, minimize the display’s color saturation (i.e., go grayscale), suppress the ambient display, and toggle night mode (i.e., dark theme) when the app-created Do Not Disturb mode schedule goes into effect.

The benefit of Google making this API public is that users won’t be limited to using the company’s Digital Wellbeing app to manage these screen options at night. Users could, for example, create an even more custom bedtime mode routine through a third-party app, one that potentially triggers based on scanning an NFC tag instead of time, for example.

There’s a low chance that Google will scrap the API from Android 15 since it has been officially announced. However, since the APIs are not finalized, the company could tweak them before the stable release, as various features like changing dark mode aren’t working in the build.

Upcoming Health Connect changes

During the “What’s new in Android Health” session at Google I/O, Google revealed that Health Connect will soon add support for history reads. Apps can currently only read the past 30 days of data that other apps have contributed to Health Connect. Limiting apps to the past 30 days of data made it difficult to migrate your entire health data history from one app to another, so it’s good to see Google remove this limitation.

Another improvement to Health Connect is the ability for apps to do background reads. This enables apps to read data from Health Connect while they’re in the background. Currently, apps need to either run a foreground service (which requires showing a persistent notification) or wait for the user to open them before they can sync with Health Connect.

Google says that both the background reads and history reads capabilities are locked behind new permissions. The Health Connect app has added two new runtime permissions, one for background reads, and one for history reads, that the user needs to explicitly grant to apps. After granting approval, users can revoke access at any time through Health Connect’s settings.

These Health Connect updates are coming later this year. Google didn’t say exactly when, but we’ve already spotted evidence of these new permissions in the Health Connect app shipped in the Android 15 beta. It’s possible this update will roll out with the Android 15 release before being backported to Android 14 through a Google Play System Update and to earlier releases through an update to the Health Connect app on Google Play.

New Project Mainline module: WebViewBootstrap

Project Mainline is referred to as the biggest change to Android since Project Treble. The purpose of Project Mainline is for Google to wrest control of framework components and system applications that are critical to security and maintaining development consistency away from OEMs, thereby reducing the overall fragmentation in the OS. Project Mainline was introduced with Android 10, and we’ve seen Google add new modules with every Android release.

With Android 15, we could get a new Project Mainline module called WebViewBootstrap. According to a report, this module will handle the core framework APIs that Android uses to integrate WebView into apps. Google already handles the distribution of the core browser component of WebView through the Play Store but pushes the core framework APIs to AOSP for OEMs to pick up from. Switching from AOSP to a Project Mainline module will give Google the ability to update the core framework APIs without OEM intervention.

This new module could launch with Android 15 but could possibly be optional for OEMs to include in their builds. It could be made mandatory to include with Android 16 instead.

New Location Privacy HAL

Android 15 could include a new radio HAL API that allows for location privacy settings. This API will give the user some more control over how their carrier can request a network-initiated location request for non-emergency use cases.

Proactive alerts when using an insecure connection

Android 15 could warn you when a cellular network collects your device’s IMSI or IMEI, as well as when the network attempts to change the ciphering algorithm to create an insecure connection. Your device does need to support newer hardware APIs for this feature to function. The cellular transparency feature will present a notification that informs the user that their device’s IMSI or IMEI has been accessed, and users will be able to access it at Settings > Security & Privacy > More security & privacy. The page will also likely include a toggle to “require encryption,” which will disable null-ciphered connections at the modem level on supported devices.

That’s everything we know (and think we know) about Android 15 so far! Be sure to bookmark this page, as it will be updated often with new leaks and announcements.

Due to the growing popularity of foldable phones and the resurgence of Android tablets, Google has been hard at work optimizing Android’s UI for large-screen devices. Their work is far from done, of course, but we’ve already gotten several exciting features from these efforts. For example, Android finally has its own taskbar, a dock that sits at the bottom of every screen so users can quickly switch between apps. The design and functionality of Android’s taskbar have changed significantly since its original inception, but one thing that hasn’t changed is its availability: it’s only available on large-screen devices. That could change in an upcoming Android 15 release, though, as Google is finally preparing to bring the taskbar to phones.

The taskbar was first introduced in 2022’s Android 12L release, a special release of Android aimed at large-screen devices. In its original version, the Android taskbar resided at the bottom of the screen, with app icons pulled from the user’s home screen dock. It was shown persistently on screen and stretched the entire width of the display, much like taskbars on desktop operating systems. With the release of Android 13, though, Google made the taskbar hideable by long-pressing on an empty space.

If you use any type of smartphone, tablet or computer, you'll know that there's this complicated love-hate relationship when it comes to notifications. While it's great to get those instant notifications about something important, sometimes, those same notifications can really just wait. Now, every ecosystem handles notifications differently, and while things have come a long way and are pretty good on Android, there's always going to be room for improvement.

In the iOS versus Android debate, one area where Android generally comes out on top is notifications. However, Android still has some issues to deal with in that regard. For example, heads-up notifications are way too distracting when you’re watching a video or playing a game. Fortunately, Google has a fix in the works for this particular issue, and we could see it go live in an upcoming Android 15 release.

The heads-up notification was introduced nearly a decade ago with the release of Android 5.0 Lollipop. It’s a type of notification that appears in a floating window on the top of the screen that you can immediately see and interact with, no matter what app you’re using. It’s intended only to be used for important notifications that you need to know about immediately, such as messages from a close friend or family member. Notifications of this type can appear when they’re part of a channel with a high importance level or when an app is in fullscreen mode. When a heads-up notification appears over a fullscreen app, it can be quite distracting, which is why many people complain about the feature online and also try to find ways to disable it.

Although Android has long offered apps the ability to use your phone’s entire screen by letting them draw content underneath the status and navigation bars, many apps don’t take advantage of this. There are many reasons why developers have shied away from making their apps go edge-to-edge, but in the upcoming Android 15 update, they’ll have no choice but to do so — or at least, that’s what we thought.

For a bit of context, apps have long been able to go edge-to-edge by implementing a few APIs that tells the OS to draw the app underneath the two “system bars” (ie. the status and navigation bars). The reason that Google didn’t immediately enforce this behavior is that many apps might have UI issues if they were forced to go edge-to-edge. For example, an app might have an interactive element like a floating action button that would overlap with the navigation bar if it went edge-to-edge.

Sometime this month or the next, Samsung will launch the One UI 7.0 Beta Program and invite Galaxy smartphone users in select countries to test the next version of One UI and Android 15.

Samsung will use feedback provided by beta testers to fix bugs and issues so it can get the final version of the Android 15 and One UI 7.0 update out as quickly as possible.

Not everyone will be able to test the new software, even if they own a device eligible for One UI 7 and Android 15. Only a limited number of Galaxy smartphones will be eligible for the beta program.

The latest flagships, like the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy Z Fold 6, are sure to be on the list, but what about other devices?

Galaxy phones that could get One UI 7.0 (Android 15) beta

Samsung has not officially revealed details about the One UI 7.0 beta as of August 2, but we can make an educated guess based on Samsung's long history of One UI beta programs. The following are the devices that have a high likelihood of getting the One UI 7.0 beta.

• Galaxy S24 series
• Galaxy S23 series
• Galaxy S22 series
• Galaxy S21 series
• Galaxy Z Fold 6
• Galaxy Z Flip 6
• Galaxy Z Fold 5
• Galaxy Z Flip 5
• Galaxy Z Fold 4
• Galaxy Z Flip 4
• Galaxy Z Fold 3
• Galaxy Z Flip 3
• Galaxy A55
• Galaxy A54
• Galaxy A35

Samsung may include more devices, particularly mid-range ones, in the beta program. However, Samsung doesn't follow a set pattern when it comes to bringing One UI beta updates to mid-range devices. We will have to wait and see what the company has in store this year.

For flagship phones launched in the last couple of years, One UI 7.0 will be preceeded by One UI 6.1.1. The time frame for the One UI 6.1.1 update's release is unknown as of August 2, but we expect it to go live sometime before September.

Be sure to bookmark this page so you can check back for any new information that becomes available in the coming days and weeks.

One UI 7.0 features: What to expect

One UI 7.0 will be among the biggest upgrades in years, especially as far as the user interface is concerned. Quite a few of the expected changes and new features have leaked online, and some of the major ones are listed below.

• New system app icons
• New background interface
• A new control area at the bottom of the lock screen
• Adjustment of shortcut icons (size?) in the left and right corners of the lock screen
• Pull-down shortcut bar and notification can be independent/merged
• The pill-shaped UI element in the upper left corner notification bar can display more apps
• Added interruptible animation and optimized app opening and closing animation curve
• New battery icon and charging animation bar
• New camera user interface
• Added support for 5G SMS messages
• New notification pop-up animations and closing animations
• Added unlock animation
• New button touch and page return animation
• Added many new desktop widgets of various sizes
• Added more lock screen widgets
• Added large folders

One UI 7.0 may not bring new Galaxy AI features. The new AI features from the Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6, which you can check out in the video below, will come to supported devices with the One UI 6.1.1 update.

The post One UI 7 (Android 15) beta: Which Galaxy phones will get it? appeared first on SamMobile.

Samsung was expected to release the One UI 7.0 update last week, but that didn't happen. We reported that the company delayed the release, and the One UI 7.0 beta update will likely be released later this month. Ahead of that release, a massive leak has revealed many One UI 7.0 features.

Several One UI 7.0 features have leaked weeks before the release

Reliable tipster Ice Universe has posted (via Android Authority) a list of some One UI 7.0 features on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo. According to the tipster, One UI 7.0 has new app icons, a new background (wallpaper?) interface, and a new control area at the bottom of the lock screen. The lock screen shortcuts now seem to have bigger icons.

He also claims that the notifications area and the quick settings panel can be merged if the user wants to. Those pages can also stay independent (similar to One UI 6). There is apparently a pill-shaped animation that can display ongoing activities from more apps (like the timer). One UI 7.0 reportedly introduces a new animation while unlocking a device's screen.

Samsung has reportedly added animations that can be interrupted by the user (like opening an app from the home screen but stopping it by clicking the home screen). Moreover, the South Korean firm is said to have improved app opening and closing animations. The tipster said One UI 7.0 brings a new battery icon and a bar-shaped charging animation.

The South Korean firm seems to have added several new widgets (of various sizes) for the home screen and the lock screen. The tipster also claimed that One UI 7.0 will bring support for large-sized app folders on the home screen.

Ice Universe also confirmed that One UI 7.0 includes a completely redesigned camera app. The new version of One UI reportedly also supports SMS sending and receiving using the 5G network. There also seem to be new animations for notification pop-ups and closing animations.

Leaked One UI 7.0 features list:

• New system application icons
• New background interface
• A new control area at the bottom of the lock screen
• Adjustment of shortcut icons (size?) in the left and right corners of the lock screen
• Pull-down shortcut bar and notification can be independent/merged
• The pill-shaped UI element in the upper left corner notification bar can display more apps
• Added interruptible animation and optimized app opening and closing animation curve
• New battery icon and charging animation bar
• New camera user interface
• Added support for 5G SMS messages
• New notification pop-up animations and closing animations
• Added unlock animation
• New button touch and page return animation
• Added many new desktop widgets of various sizes
• Added more lock screen widgets
• Added large folders

Watch the leaked icons for the stock Clock and Samsung Internet apps in our video below. Those icons will be available with the One UI 7.0 update.

Samsung will likely open the One UI 7.0 Beta Program for the Galaxy S24 series before the end of this month. The beta program could be available in China, Germany, India, South Korea, the UK, and the US. However, the company's plans can change, so nothing can be said for sure right now.

The post Massive One UI 7 leak lists several upcoming features appeared first on SamMobile.

Android 15 development is coming along nicely, with the update shaping up to be a bigger one than we had initially hoped. The development recently achieved its platform stability milestone with beta version 3, but the software still feels like work-in-progress because we keep spotting new features and bugs. The latest issue is affecting the lock screen on beta 3, ruining the user experience with repeated authentication prompts.

With companies like Samsung and Google extending their phone update policies to seven years, it’s never been more important to research what your options are in case your phone breaks or seems to be wearing down in some way. Even though many hardware issues can’t be properly diagnosed — let alone repaired — without taking your phone to a repair center, there are some things you can check yourself to save you some time and money. In the upcoming Android 15 update, Google is preparing to add a dedicated device diagnostics page that lets you run some manual tests and check up on the health of some of your phone’s internal components.

Google released Android 15 Beta 3 earlier this week, and after tinkering with the build on one of my Pixel phones, I managed to surface a new entry in the Settings app called Device Diagnostics. This entry is located under the Settings > System location, and while it doesn’t have a description, it’s obvious what this page does after opening it.

The device diagnostics page opens up with two items: “Component health” and “Evaluation mode.” Component health lets you “run manual tests and view battery and storage health.” Evaluation mode lets you “use one device to assess another device.”

Under the Component health page, you can run a display test that shows a series of differently colored screens, making it easy to inspect the screen for defects visually. You can also run a touch test that shows a red screen turning white as you swipe your finger over it, giving an obvious indicator of where touch input may be broken. 

Lastly, the Component health screen lets you check the health of your phone’s battery and storage chip. The battery status page shows you the remaining capacity of your phone’s battery as a percentage of its original capacity, the manufacturing date of your phone’s battery, its first usage date, and its charging cycle count. It also has fields for the serial number and part status, but my device doesn’t support reporting those values, so they were empty.

The storage status page, meanwhile, shows you the remaining lifetime of your phone’s storage chip as well as its total capacity. I previously documented how Android 15 calculates the remaining lifetime of the storage chip in case you’re wondering how that works under the hood. As for how Android is able to estimate your battery’s remaining capacity (and other battery health related information), I also already went into detail on how that works.

Evaluation mode requires a secondary, trusted device to assess the device under evaluation. The device that’s being assessed needs to tap Evaluated device to generate a QR code that the other device can scan. Doing so will run a series of tests on the device that’s being evaluated, some of which require internet access. These tests consist of the same display and touch test from before. Completing these tests generates a report that can be evaluated to see if there are any issues with the device.

I’ve been tracking Google’s work on implementing battery and storage-health-related APIs for a while now, wondering when it would finally provide users an easy way to check up on these components. I’m glad to see that Google is finally adding a way to check the health of these components in Android 15. While the device diagnostics page doesn’t provide a ton of information, nor does it test every component, it could save some folks a lot of hassle, especially those whose issues stem from their device’s display/touch screen, battery, or storage.

The latest version of the KDE Plasma Desktop environment has arrived for Linux-based operating systems. The next version of Google’s Android operating system is inching closer to release. And if you’ve ever found yourself wishing that you could use an eReader that has Barnes & Noble’s NOOK hardware but Kobo’s software, well… maybe you can? […]

The post Lilbits: KDE Plasma 6.1, Google Android 15 Beta 3, and Kobo firmware on a NOOK eReader appeared first on Liliputing.

Google released the first Android 15 beta on April 11, 2024, with Android 15 beta 2 following on May 15, and the Android 15 Beta 2.1 coming in on May 20. This falls in line with the Android 15 release timeline Google published when the Developer Preview 1 rolled out. While all this is great, you might be wondering when your phone will get the Android 15 update.

Because Android is used by billions of people worldwide, Google has to design the operating system with accessibility in mind. Hundreds of millions of people suffer from a degree of hearing loss, which is why Android offers assistive features like Live Captions. There’s only so much that Android itself can do to compensate for hearing loss, though, which is where dedicated assistive devices like hearing aids come in. Android has technically supported hearing aids since Android 10 was released in 2019, but with the upcoming update to Android 15 later this year, the operating system will significantly improve support for them.

Hearing aids, if you aren’t aware, are a type of electronic device that’s designed to help people with hearing loss. They’re inserted into your ears, similar to other types of hearables like wireless earbuds, but their main purpose is not to stream music but to amplify environmental sounds so you can hear better. Many sounds originate from your phone, though, which is why many hearing aids nowadays support Bluetooth connectivity. People with hearing loss want to be able to hear who they’re speaking to in voice calls, watch videos on YouTube, or even listen to music, all of which is possible thanks to Bluetooth.

However, hearing aids, unlike wireless earbuds, absolutely need to have all-day battery life. That’s challenging to achieve when using a standard Bluetooth Classic connection to stream audio from your phone to your hearing aids. Streaming audio between two devices connected via Bluetooth Low Energy (Bluetooth LE) is more battery efficient, but for the longest time, there wasn’t a standardized way to stream audio using Bluetooth LE.

That left things up to companies like Apple and Google to create their own proprietary, Bluetooth LE-based hearing aid protocols. Apple has its Made for iPhone (MFi) hearing aid protocol, while Google has its Audio Streaming for Hearing Aids (ASHA) protocol. The former was introduced to iOS way back in 2013, while the latter was introduced more recently in 2019 with the release of Android 10. While there are now several hearing aids on the market compatible with both MFi and ASHA, the fragmentation problem remains. Any advancements in the protocol made by one company will only be enjoyed by users of that company’s ecosystem, and since we’re talking about an accessibility service that people rely on, that’s a problem.

Fortunately, there’s now a standardized way for devices to stream audio over Bluetooth Low Energy, and it’s aptly called Bluetooth LE Audio. LE Audio not only supports the development of standard Bluetooth hearing aids that work across platforms but also implements new features like Auracast. We’ve already shown you how Android 15 is baking in better support for LE Audio through a new audio-sharing feature, but that’s not the only LE Audio-related improvement the operating system update will bring.

At Google I/O earlier this month, Google announced that Android 15 will support hearing aids that use both Bluetooth LE Audio (LEA) as well as the company’s ASHA protocol. Furthermore, the update will introduce a new Quick Settings tile that makes connecting and disconnecting to hearing aids much easier. The hearing aid Quick Settings tile is already live in Android 15 Beta 2, in fact, but I don’t have any hearing aids myself to test this feature out.

According to the images that Google showed, though, the Quick Setting pop-up will let users toggle various accessibility features like Live Caption, Live Transcribe, and Sound Notifications. It’ll also let users change the hearing aid preset, which “represents a configuration of the hearing aid signal processing parameters tailored to a specific listening situation,” according to the Bluetooth SIG. The exact presets that can be selected depends on what the hearing aid reports to Android. In the example image that Google shared, there were presets for “Restaurant,” “Music,” “TV,” “Outdoors,” and “All-Round.” Finally, Google says that users will also be able to view the battery level of their connected hearing aids directly within Android’s Settings and Quick Settings.

Improved hearing aid support isn’t the only accessibility-related improvement coming to Android. During Global Accessibility Awareness Day earlier this month, Google announced a number of accessibility updates to its Android apps, including Lookout, Look to Speak, Project Relate, and more. These changes, along with the upcoming improvements to Live Captions that we recently detailed, will make Android even more accessible to people with difficulty hearing or seeing.

Google is working on improving and ironing out Android 15 for a release later this year. As usual, the new OS version introduces a handful of new features, some of which are not entirely original. Instant Hotspot is one such addition to Android 15, and fresh reports say it won't be coming to Samsung Galaxy devices.

First things first, what is Android's new Instant Hotspot feature? In short, it's a neat little tool that lets an Android tablet or Chromebook instantly connect to a phone's hotspot network.

f you use an Android tablet or a Chromebook without Wi-Fi in the vicinity of your phone, you'll see a pop-up asking you whether you want to use your phone's hotspot network, and the process is seamless.

It sounds convenient as much as it sounds familiar to Galaxy device users. And herein lies the apparent reason why Instant Hotspot isn't coming to One UI, Google says (via Android Authority).

Samsung's One UI already has something called Auto Hotspot

If it sounds like you've already encountered something like Google's Instant Hotspot on your Galaxy device, you probably have. Samsung's One UI boasts a feature called Auto Hotspot, which fulfills the same function as Instant Hotspot.

The difference is that Google's Instant Hotspot works with any Android tablet and Chromebook, whereas Samsung's Auto Hotspot only works with Galaxy devices, as long as they share a Samsung account or family group.

Story continues after the video…

On the bright side, Galaxy device users have had Auto Hotspot for some time, and the fact that they won't gain access to Google's version through Android 15 won't make much of a difference to their experience.

As long as you use Samsung Galaxy devices exclusively, you won't miss Instant Hotspot whatsoever. However, if you were hoping to utilize the Auto Hotspot feature in One UI with other Android tablet brands or a Chromebook, you might feel left out once Android 15 lands.

Editor's Note: Samsung might have had to choose between keeping its in-house Auto Hotspot One UI feature — which it developed before Google created Instant Hotspot — or ditching a feature Galaxy device users already have in favor of Google's alternative. 

It's understandable why Samsung might not be keen on abandoning Auto Hotspot and why it might not want to overcomplicate the user experience by offering both hotspot features at the same time.

However, seeing how Google's Nearby Share and Samsung's Quick Share have merged, maybe Samsung's Auto Hotspot will eventually merge with Google's Instant Hotspot.

The post Android 15 Instant Hotspot feature not coming to Samsung, but that’s okay appeared first on SamMobile.

The way we interact with technology has evolved significantly. Gone are the days when we primarily used a single device for all our needs. Today’s ...

The post Android 15 to Enable Device Switching During Calls appeared first on Gizchina.com.

Google will be releasing its latest Android 15 update later this year, and it’s poised to bring a ton of new features. These include a dedicated Private Space for your apps, saving app pairs, a predictive back gesture, and so much more. The update will also bring loads of minor improvements to the platform, many of which we’re still uncovering. Case in point: in the second beta of Android 15 that Google just released, there’s a new Google Pixel Avatar App that seemingly doesn’t change much. Here’s why Google added it.

Last Wednesday, Google released Android 15 Beta 2 for compatible Pixel devices, which includes every Tensor-powered Pixel. After installing the update, some users noticed that a new Google Pixel Avatar App was installed on their devices. According to my analysis, the Google Pixel Avatar App is simply an unbundled version of the existing avatar picker experience that’s found under Settings > System > Multiple users when you go to change your profile picture. It offers the same experience as the previous iteration that was integrated into the Settings app, complete with the ability to take a photo to use as your profile picture, select an image from your gallery to use as your profile picture, or select from one of several premade profile pictures. However, it adds one new feature: the ability to use your current Google Account picture as your profile picture.

Every major Android update brings a couple of high-level, user-facing features that get a bunch of marketing and attention, but they also make a lot of low-level, under-the-hood changes that can be just as important from a user experience perspective. Take the upcoming Android 15 update as an example. At this week’s Google I/O 2024 developer conference, the second beta of Android 15 was announced with headline-grabbing features like Private Space, App Pairs, improved theft detection services, and a whole lot more. But during I/O, Google also quietly shared some interesting statistics about Android 15, such as that it improves standby battery life by up to three hours on some devices.

At Google I/O, I asked Dave Burke, VP of Engineering for the Android Platform, and Sameet Samat, President of the Android Ecosystem, to explain how Google achieved the battery life improvements that they announced as part of the latest version of Wear OS. If you missed the announcement, Google basically said that marathon runs on smartwatches running Wear OS 5 consume up to 20% less power than they do on Wear OS 4. Samat said this specific improvement was achieved by making a variety of optimizations, with one example being a reduction in how long it takes for the device’s main applications processor (AP) to go back to sleep after being woken up to write some health data. (For the full interview with Dave Burke and Sameet Samat, check out episode 44 of the Android Faithful podcast, of which I am a co-host).

Android already makes signing into accounts easy by auto-filling your credentials in two taps. However, Google is simplifying the process even further in Android 15, while also bringing Credential Manager to Wear OS.

This week has been filled with announcements from Google I/O and now the company has revealed changes to Credential Manager. One of those changes will simplify the sign-in experience for passkeys.

Satellite connectivity in smartphones has been a hot topic ever since Apple introduced it in the iPhone 14 series. There’s a lot of work that goes into enabling satellite connectivity on a mobile device, which is why progress has been slow on the Android side of things. Fortunately, it’s looking more and more likely that we’ll see phones running Android 15 ship with satellite connectivity support.

In a previous Android beta release, we spotted a hidden satellite messaging page that we believed would tie into T-Mobile and SpaceX’s satellite messaging service. With the release of the second Android 15 beta this week, though, several T-Mobile users have found that this page has gone live for them.

During Google I/O 2024, the Mountain View-based firm launched the second beta for Android 15. The new beta introduces a number of changes, including one that should make it easier for the user to understand the makeup of their storage.

If you go into your settings on Android and take a look at your storage, you’ll see a category called “System.” The option isn’t exactly clear for most users who want to know what’s contained in the category. Tapping on the option will just inform you that “System includes files used to run Android version 14.” But it looks like Google wants to make things a little clearer for the average user with Android 15.

Android 14 was publicly launched with the Pixel 8 series back in October 2023. We’re well into the new year, and Google has begun testing the next version of Android, now up to the Android 15 Beta 2. This is still only intended for early adopters and app developers, but things are coming along.

In this article, we’re going to tell you everything we know (and think we know) about Android 15 so far! Fair warning, we’ve covered a lot of features in immense detail, so this article is very long. Consequently, this article has several indexes that should make it easier to navigate.

Android 15 just received its newest release, Beta 2. App developers and enthusiasts can install Android 15 Beta 2 on their Pixel devices to test their apps. If you can live with an older build, you can install Android 15 beta on other OEM devices, too. On the Pixels, the latest Beta 2 brings a revamped, collapsible volume panel, marking a big UI change.

We’ve reported on Android 15’s revamped volume panel before. The code for the feature was present in Android 15 Developer Preview 2, but we had to activate it manually. As Mishaal Rahman notes, the revamped panel is standard on the Beta 2, and you can access it with your phone’s volume buttons.

As you can see, the basic volume slider remains the same. However, the expanded volume panel that is accessed after pressing the three-dot button is different. Older builds had an expanded volume panel that looked rather disjointed, while the newer builds have thicker, pill-shaped sliders. Of course, you can slide the slider to change volume, but you can also click on the extreme left of any pill to mute that stream or on the extreme right to raise the stream to maximum volume. This expanded volume panel also collapses, and you can do that by pressing the button next to the media stream.

Helpfully, the expanded volume panel now includes a persistent media output shortcut, which remains present there irrespective of the media playback state. There are also new animations, with the stream name text moving with the slider.

How do you like the new volume panels on Android 15 Beta 2? Let us know in the comments below!

The Android 15 beta has been restricted to Pixel devices. That’s changing this week, though, as the company has confirmed a list of OEMs offering their own Android 15 beta program.

Google revealed a list of participating manufacturers during its I/O developer conference today (May 15). These companies are HONOR, IQOO, Lenovo, Nothing, OnePlus, OPPO, realme, Sharp, TECNO, vivo, and Xiaomi. Notable absentees include ASUS, Samsung, and Sony.

We’ve put together a list below, detailing each OEM’s Android 15 beta program. We’ll update it as more manufacturers issue details.

HONOR

The Chinese manufacturer confirmed that the first Android 15 beta was available to developers with the Magic 6 Pro and Magic V2 foldable phone.

“HONOR will also continue to support developers with the next update to Android 15 beta later this summer,” the company noted in a press release.

IQOO and vivo

Vivo has also revealed its participation in the Android 15 beta program, using the X100 and IQOO 12 smartphones. This program has some regional caveats, though.

“Starting from May 15, 2024, the Android 15 beta program will be available on vivo X100 in countries and regions including India, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Kazakhstan, and on iQOO 12 in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, and India,” the manufacturer explained in a release.

Lenovo

Lenovo was one of a few companies to offer last year’s Android 14 beta on a tablet, and this is the case with the Android 15 beta as well. The manufacturer has just released the Android 15 beta on the Lenovo Tab Extreme. This release is limited to the Wi-Fi version for now, while the brand has also issued a list of known issues.

Nothing

The upstart tech company didn’t quite beat OnePlus in releasing the Android 15 beta, but it was still quick on the draw. Nothing released the first Android 15 beta to the Nothing Phone 2a yesterday (May 14).

It’s interesting to see the beta missing the more powerful Nothing Phone 2. Then again, many OEMs use the beta program as a marketing exercise for their most recent phones, and it would appear that Nothing is no different in this regard.

OnePlus

OnePlus was the first Android OEM (aside from Google) to release the Android 15 beta. The company brought the Android 15 beta 1 to the unlocked OnePlus 12 and the OnePlus Open foldable phone yesterday.

The Chinese brand also acknowledged a variety of known issues right now, ranging from Bluetooth and Wi-Fi problems to the mobile hotspot functionality not working.

realme

BBK brand realme has also released the Android 15 beta, and you don’t need a flagship smartphone. Instead, the beta software is available on the mid-range realme 12 Pro Plus handset.

Sharp

Even Japan’s Sharp is participating in the Android 15 beta. The company says you can now download the beta software on the Sharp Aquos Sense 8.

TECNO

Transsion’s TECNO is also offering access to the Android 15 beta program, but it didn’t confirm release details. The company is, however, bringing the beta program to the recently launched TECNO Camon 30 Pro 5G.

Xiaomi

The veteran manufacturer has also announced Android 15 beta details, although it didn’t reveal a launch timeline. Nevertheless, you can participate in the beta program if you’ve got a Xiaomi 14, Xiaomi 13T Pro, or Xiaomi Pad 6S Pro 12.4. Yep, you can try out the Android 15 beta on a tablet, too.

Earlier today, Google rolled out the second beta release of Android 15. Android 15 Beta 2 brings a load of new features, many of which Android Authority previously revealed. However, the new release has some features that we didn’t anticipate, such as a new “adaptive vibration” feature that’s quietly gone live for many Pixel users.

Under Settings > Sound & vibration > Vibration & haptics in Android 15 Beta 2, there’s a new adaptive vibration option. This setting appeared for multiple Pixel 7 Pro and Pixel 8 Pro users, so it doesn’t seem to be limited to just one model. According to its description, adaptive vibration “automatically adjusts your phone’s vibrations based on your environment.” It does this by using your phone’s “microphone and other sensors” to “determine sound levels and context.” To preserve privacy, “no data is recorded.”

Android includes a helpful animation on the adaptive vibration page that explains what the feature does. The animation shows that, when the feature is enabled, your phone’s haptics will vibrate more intensely when your phone is on a couch and less intensely when it’s on a table. This makes sense, since the cushions on a couch can dampen your phone’s vibrations, so it needs to vibrate harder to compensate. On the other hand, your phone’s vibrations can cause other objects on a table to rustle, so reducing the intensity of the haptic motor might be necessary.

It’s not clear what sensors other than the microphone are used to adjust your phone’s vibration intensity, but we’re hoping this feature works well because of its obvious benefits. Google didn’t mention adaptive vibration in any of its marketing material for Android 15 Beta 2, so it’s possible it didn’t intend for it to launch in this release. In fact, I saw strings for this feature in an earlier beta release but thought it wouldn’t go live before the launch of the Google Pixel 9 series.

If you’ve installed Android 15 Beta 2 on your Pixel phone, let us know if the adaptive vibration feature works for you and what you think of it!

Thanks to Telegram user Arseniy Graur for the tip!

If listening to long presentations about the latest Android 15 update isn’t your style, Google has a more engaging alternative for you. The company has taken a playful approach to introducing the latest features of Android 15 by partnering with the McLaren Formula 1 team to create the “Game On” suite of mini-games.

This interactive experience allows users to explore upcoming Android functionalities while enjoying some lighthearted fun, even featuring appearances by McLaren F1 drivers Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri.

“Google Play Protect” challenges players to navigate a McLaren F1 car through a track laden with scam apps, highlighting the upcoming on-device fraud protection feature. This new feature promises live threat detection to identify and steer users clear of apps engaging in malicious behavior.

“Theft Detection Lock” takes a playful jab at phone theft with a Whack-a-mole style game, where successfully defending your virtual phone reveals Android’s AI-powered theft detection capabilities. This feature will automatically lock down the phone upon detecting a snatching attempt, safeguarding user data.

The third game, “Gemini on Android,” takes inspiration from rhythm games like Tap Tap Revenge. It challenges players to keep their Gemini ball in the correct lane to receive tasks. As expected, the new feature spotlight falls on enhancements to Gemini here, making it more context-aware, integrated, and helpful on Android devices.

The Game On suite offers three additional games: Google Cast, Private Space, and Circle to Search, my favorite. For those who prefer a more in-depth overview of the announced features, check out our comprehensive coverage of Google’s 2024 I/O announcements.

On the second day of Google IO 2024, Google released a new beta of Android 15 and announced a bunch of new features coming to Android for mobile devices and TVs. But today’s news isn’t all about Google: Apple also unveiled upcoming accessibility features for iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS. And after a slightly rocky start, […]

The post Lilbits: Android 15 Beta 2, Accessibility for Android and iOS, and more emulators in the App Store appeared first on Liliputing.

Android 14 was publicly launched with the Pixel 8 series back in October 2023. We’re a few months into the new year, and Google has begun testing the next version of Android, now up to the Android 15 Beta 1.2. This is still only intended for early adopters, but things are coming along.

In this article, we’re going to tell you everything we know (and think we know) about Android 15 so far!

If you don’t like the stock camera app that came with your Android device, there are a lot of third-party camera apps for Android you can try. These third-party camera apps often add advanced, pro-level camera controls and filters you won’t find in the stock camera app. On the flip side, they usually lack some of the basic features offered by the OEM’s camera app. The solution to this is for the OEM to package its features into an “extension” that third-party camera apps can use. Android currently supports five different types of extensions, but the upcoming Android 15 update could add support for a sixth extension called Eyes Free videography.

Under the hood, every camera app — whether it be the OEM stock app or a third-party app — is built on top of Android’s Camera2 API (the Jetpack support library called CameraX is a wrapper for Camera2). The Camera2 Extensions API provides a way for camera apps to access extensions that OEMs have implemented on their devices. As of Android 14, the Camera2 Extensions API supports the following five types of extensions:

Android 14 was publicly launched with the Pixel 8 series back in October 2023. We’re a few months into the new year, and Google has begun testing the next version of Android, now up to the Android 15 Beta 1.2. This is still only intended for early adopters, but things are coming along.

In this article, we’re going to tell you everything we know (and think we know) about Android 15 so far!

If you don’t like the stock camera app that came with your Android device, there are a lot of third-party camera apps for Android you can try. These third-party camera apps often add advanced, pro-level camera controls and filters you won’t find in the stock camera app. On the flip side, they usually lack some of the basic features offered by the OEM’s camera app. The solution to this is for the OEM to package its features into an “extension” that third-party camera apps can use. Android currently supports five different types of extensions, but the upcoming Android 15 update could add support for a sixth extension called Eyes Free videography.

Under the hood, every camera app — whether it be the OEM stock app or a third-party app — is built on top of Android’s Camera2 API (the Jetpack support library called CameraX is a wrapper for Camera2). The Camera2 Extensions API provides a way for camera apps to access extensions that OEMs have implemented on their devices. As of Android 14, the Camera2 Extensions API supports the following five types of extensions:

Android is used by billions of people worldwide, so it’s no wonder that accessibility is a key concern for Google. The company has developed several accessibility tools for its mobile operating system, including the Android Accessibility Suite, which offers a built-in select-to-speak function, a screen reader tool, additional navigation options, and more. Google also baked several accessibility features right into the OS, such as text and display scaling, color correction, and screen magnification. Screen magnification can currently be activated in one of three ways, though a fourth option is being added in the upcoming Android 15 update.

Screen magnification — not to be confused with the Pixel-exclusive Magnifier app, which allows you to use the camera to see real-world objects that are small or far away — is a native feature of the Android operating system that zooms in on the screen to make elements easier to see. It’s found under Settings > Accessibility > Magnification (at least on Pixel devices) and can be set up to magnify either the entire screen or a specific area of interest. It’s an especially nifty tool for anyone who has difficulty seeing, which is why Android offers a couple of methods to activate it on demand.

These activation methods, which can be found under the “magnification shortcut” submenu, currently include an on-screen accessibility button, a gesture that involves pressing and holding down both volume keys, and a gesture that involves quickly tapping the screen three times. The first method is the most convenient but takes up part of the screen and always magnifies the center. The second method doesn’t take up space on-screen but has the longest activation time. The third method is really convenient and also lets you zoom in on the exact part of the screen you want to magnify, but it also slows down your device since Android has to add a delay to every screen tap.

The new, fourth activation method for screen magnification — currently being developed for Android 15 — will let users quickly tap the screen two times with two fingers to zoom in. This new “two-finger double-tap screen” magnification shortcut isn’t visible yet in the latest Android 15 Beta 1.2 release, but we managed to surface the toggle manually, as shown below. This toggle is shown above the collapsed-by-default “advanced” dropdown, which currently contains the “triple-tap screen” shortcut. The likely reason that Google hid the triple-tap screen shortcut under a dropdown is that it slows down other tap inputs, as mentioned before. Its description even warns that “this shortcut may slow down your device.”

Interestingly, this text is missing from the description for the two-finger double-tap screen shortcut, suggesting it won’t slow down your device. However, in our brief testing, we noticed that there’s still a slight delay in screen taps when it’s enabled. This could be because the feature isn’t finished, or it’s actually working as intended, and Google just hasn’t updated the description to reflect the behavior. Either way, users who rely on Android’s screen magnification feature should look forward to the Android 15 update and its numerous accessibility improvements.

Android 14 was publicly launched with the Pixel 8 series back in October 2023. We’re a few months into the new year, and Google has begun testing the next version of Android, now up to the Android 15 Beta 1.2. This is still only intended for early adopters, but things are coming along.

In this article, we’re going to tell you everything we know (and think we know) about Android 15 so far!

If you don’t like the stock camera app that came with your Android device, there are a lot of third-party camera apps for Android you can try. These third-party camera apps often add advanced, pro-level camera controls and filters you won’t find in the stock camera app. On the flip side, they usually lack some of the basic features offered by the OEM’s camera app. The solution to this is for the OEM to package its features into an “extension” that third-party camera apps can use. Android currently supports five different types of extensions, but the upcoming Android 15 update could add support for a sixth extension called Eyes Free videography.

Under the hood, every camera app — whether it be the OEM stock app or a third-party app — is built on top of Android’s Camera2 API (the Jetpack support library called CameraX is a wrapper for Camera2). The Camera2 Extensions API provides a way for camera apps to access extensions that OEMs have implemented on their devices. As of Android 14, the Camera2 Extensions API supports the following five types of extensions:

Android is used by billions of people worldwide, so it’s no wonder that accessibility is a key concern for Google. The company has developed several accessibility tools for its mobile operating system, including the Android Accessibility Suite, which offers a built-in select-to-speak function, a screen reader tool, additional navigation options, and more. Google also baked several accessibility features right into the OS, such as text and display scaling, color correction, and screen magnification. Screen magnification can currently be activated in one of three ways, though a fourth option is being added in the upcoming Android 15 update.

Screen magnification — not to be confused with the Pixel-exclusive Magnifier app, which allows you to use the camera to see real-world objects that are small or far away — is a native feature of the Android operating system that zooms in on the screen to make elements easier to see. It’s found under Settings > Accessibility > Magnification (at least on Pixel devices) and can be set up to magnify either the entire screen or a specific area of interest. It’s an especially nifty tool for anyone who has difficulty seeing, which is why Android offers a couple of methods to activate it on demand.

These activation methods, which can be found under the “magnification shortcut” submenu, currently include an on-screen accessibility button, a gesture that involves pressing and holding down both volume keys, and a gesture that involves quickly tapping the screen three times. The first method is the most convenient but takes up part of the screen and always magnifies the center. The second method doesn’t take up space on-screen but has the longest activation time. The third method is really convenient and also lets you zoom in on the exact part of the screen you want to magnify, but it also slows down your device since Android has to add a delay to every screen tap.

The new, fourth activation method for screen magnification — currently being developed for Android 15 — will let users quickly tap the screen two times with two fingers to zoom in. This new “two-finger double-tap screen” magnification shortcut isn’t visible yet in the latest Android 15 Beta 1.2 release, but we managed to surface the toggle manually, as shown below. This toggle is shown above the collapsed-by-default “advanced” dropdown, which currently contains the “triple-tap screen” shortcut. The likely reason that Google hid the triple-tap screen shortcut under a dropdown is that it slows down other tap inputs, as mentioned before. Its description even warns that “this shortcut may slow down your device.”

Interestingly, this text is missing from the description for the two-finger double-tap screen shortcut, suggesting it won’t slow down your device. However, in our brief testing, we noticed that there’s still a slight delay in screen taps when it’s enabled. This could be because the feature isn’t finished, or it’s actually working as intended, and Google just hasn’t updated the description to reflect the behavior. Either way, users who rely on Android’s screen magnification feature should look forward to the Android 15 update and its numerous accessibility improvements.

Android 14 was publicly launched with the Pixel 8 series back in October 2023. We’re a few months into the new year, and Google has begun testing the next version of Android, now up to the Android 15 Beta 1.2. This is still only intended for early adopters, but things are coming along.

In this article, we’re going to tell you everything we know (and think we know) about Android 15 so far!

Although Google designed Android’s UI to scale on both phones and tablets properly, it optimized the UI to look best in portrait mode for phones and landscape mode for tablets. That makes the most sense since phones are naturally meant to be held in portrait mode and tablets in landscape mode, but there are times when you want to use either device in the opposite orientation. If you rotate your Android phone into landscape mode, though, you may notice that certain system UI elements like the lock screen and the notifications panel aren’t optimized, at least on stock Android. Fortunately, the Android 15 update could bring an optimized landscape layout for both the lock screen and the notifications panel on phones.

Before I showcase the new lock screen and notifications panel layouts, I want to mention how they look in the current stock Android 14 release. Since the lock screen can’t rotate at all in stock Android 14 on phones, there’s nothing for me to show there. In contrast, the notifications panel does have a landscape layout already in stock Android 14, albeit with some issues. For starters, there’s a lot of wasted space since two-thirds of the screen is reserved for notifications that only stretch to about half the width of the panel. The top third is taken up by a row of four Quick Settings tiles, which is fine, but other elements like the Quick Settings edit button, brightness slider, foreground services task manager, user switcher, settings shortcut, and power menu shortcut aren’t shown. These remaining elements are only shown when you fully expand the notifications panel, which requires another swipe down. Fortunately, Android at least manages to slot in the media player in the unexpanded state, but the downside is that there’s less room for notifications.

Late last month, we first reported that Google will revamp the system volume panel interface in the upcoming Android 15 release. The new design we enabled features much thicker, pill-shaped sliders all around, is collapsible, and has some playful animations for volume adjustments. Fast-forward one month, and the new volume panel UI we showed off has still not rolled out in the Android 15 beta. Thanks to a third-party app, though, you don’t need to wait any longer to try it out.

The developer of Precise Volume, one of the best volume control apps for Android, has released a new update that adds a new “Android 15 Preview” popup style for the app’s Volume Button Override feature. Basically, the Precise Volume app is capable of overriding the system’s stock volume panel UI and replacing it with its own. Before the latest beta update, the app’s only available popup style was based on the older volume panel UI from Android 14. After seeing our article on Android 15’s revamped volume panel UI, though, the developer decided to try their hand at replicating the new interface. Having tried both the official and the replicated experience, I can say the developer did a pretty good job at mimicking the new UI.

When people compare iOS to Android, one aspect of Android that receives nearly universal praise is how it handles app notifications. Thanks to the meticulous work Google has put into the feature over the years, Android notifications are easy to read, interact with, and manage. Android offers granular, per-app, and per-category-level control over notifications, and with every new OS release, Google has introduced new features to make managing them even easier. The upcoming Android 15 update will be no different.

With the release of Android 8.0 in 2017, Google introduced the ability for apps to create notification channels. Notification channels are essentially categories to which apps must assign notifications. For example, a shopping app might have a notification channel for order updates and another channel for promoting sales.

With smartphone companies pushing longer and longer phone update policies, it’s become increasingly important to consider factors like aftersales parts availability and ease of self-repair when making a new phone purchase. After all, even if your phone maker promises to deliver seven years of software support, will your phone’s hardware even last that long? There are easy steps you can take to maximize battery life, but there’s not much you can do to extend the lifetime of your phone’s storage chip. For starters, there isn’t even a way for you to find out the remaining lifetime of your phone’s storage chip. Fortunately, that’ll change in the Android 15 update.

Since late last year, Google has been working on surfacing useful information about your phone’s hardware. It started with battery health-related information such as the manufacture date, cycle count, and state of health, which are all useful factors in knowing when it’s time to replace your phone’s battery. Some of this information was briefly shown under the Settings > About phone > Battery information page before it was removed in March’s Android 14 QPR2 update, since the page is supposedly intended to only be enabled on the upcoming Pixel 8a and onward.

Alongside battery health-related information, Google is also planning to surface info about the health of the device’s storage component. Both sets of information will be surfaced in a new “Device Diagnostics” app. Under the hood, the Device Diagnostics app will utilize a new storage lifetime API in Android 15 that “returns the remaining lifetime of the internal storage device, as an integer percentage.” If the API returns 90, for example, then that means that 90% of the storage device’s useful lifetime remains.

Although the patch referenced above hasn’t been merged to AOSP yet, the API is already present and enabled in the latest Android 15 beta 1 release. This is because the patch that Google submitted to AOSP was already merged into Google’s internal Android codebase, which is what the company actually uses to make its Android builds. The API itself simply makes information that Android was already collecting available to (system) apps.

The description for the initial patch that implements this new API says it only “differs slightly from the previous API, which exist[ed] for idle maintenance.” Idle maintenance is when Android trims unused blocks in the filesystem, which is useful for flash storage chips. Trimming unused blocks excessively can reduce the lifespan of the storage chip, which is why it’s necessary to check the health of the UFS chip and intelligently run idle maintenance. Android 13 actually introduced a smarter idle maintenance service under the hood for this exact purpose.

The initial patch also mentions that this value is “intended to be displayed to users,” so it’s likely users will get access to the Device Diagnostics app in a future beta release. However, only some devices (like Google’s own Pixel lineup) will report the remaining storage lifetime at 1% granularity, while others will report at a less accurate 10% granularity. This means that the remaining storage lifetime value won’t be a useful metric on every device, unfortunately.

That’s assuming it’ll even be available because not every device will support showing the remaining storage lifetime. Devices need to collect and share this information with the Android OS through the Health HAL. On devices that don’t do this, the storage lifetime API will return -1, which means the feature is unsupported. Whether a device supports this API is up to the OEM or the vendor of the storage chip since Google currently doesn’t require devices to support it. If you have a Pixel device running Android 15, though, the storage lifetime API is fully supported and will be used by the Device Diagnostics app to show you the remaining lifetime of your Pixel device’s storage chip.

With smartphone companies pushing longer and longer phone update policies, it’s become increasingly important to consider factors like aftersales parts availability and ease of self-repair when making a new phone purchase. After all, even if your phone maker promises to deliver seven years of software support, will your phone’s hardware even last that long? There are easy steps you can take to maximize battery life, but there’s not much you can do to extend the lifetime of your phone’s storage chip. For starters, there isn’t even a way for you to find out the remaining lifetime of your phone’s storage chip. Fortunately, that’ll change in the Android 15 update.

Since late last year, Google has been working on surfacing useful information about your phone’s hardware. It started with battery health-related information such as the manufacture date, cycle count, and state of health, which are all useful factors in knowing when it’s time to replace your phone’s battery. Some of this information was briefly shown under the Settings > About phone > Battery information page before it was removed in March’s Android 14 QPR2 update, since the page is supposedly intended to only be enabled on the upcoming Pixel 8a and onward.

Alongside battery health-related information, Google is also planning to surface info about the health of the device’s storage component. Both sets of information will be surfaced in a new “Device Diagnostics” app. Under the hood, the Device Diagnostics app will utilize a new storage lifetime API in Android 15 that “returns the remaining lifetime of the internal storage device, as an integer percentage.” If the API returns 90, for example, then that means that 90% of the storage device’s useful lifetime remains.

Although the patch referenced above hasn’t been merged to AOSP yet, the API is already present and enabled in the latest Android 15 beta 1 release. This is because the patch that Google submitted to AOSP was already merged into Google’s internal Android codebase, which is what the company actually uses to make its Android builds. The API itself simply makes information that Android was already collecting available to (system) apps.

The description for the initial patch that implements this new API says it only “differs slightly from the previous API, which exist[ed] for idle maintenance.” Idle maintenance is when Android trims unused blocks in the filesystem, which is useful for flash storage chips. Trimming unused blocks excessively can reduce the lifespan of the storage chip, which is why it’s necessary to check the health of the UFS chip and intelligently run idle maintenance. Android 13 actually introduced a smarter idle maintenance service under the hood for this exact purpose.

The initial patch also mentions that this value is “intended to be displayed to users,” so it’s likely users will get access to the Device Diagnostics app in a future beta release. However, only some devices (like Google’s own Pixel lineup) will report the remaining storage lifetime at 1% granularity, while others will report at a less accurate 10% granularity. This means that the remaining storage lifetime value won’t be a useful metric on every device, unfortunately.

That’s assuming it’ll even be available because not every device will support showing the remaining storage lifetime. Devices need to collect and share this information with the Android OS through the Health HAL. On devices that don’t do this, the storage lifetime API will return -1, which means the feature is unsupported. Whether a device supports this API is up to the OEM or the vendor of the storage chip since Google currently doesn’t require devices to support it. If you have a Pixel device running Android 15, though, the storage lifetime API is fully supported and will be used by the Device Diagnostics app to show you the remaining lifetime of your Pixel device’s storage chip.

Widgets give you quick access to shortcuts or information from your favorite apps right from your Android home screen. Android widgets have been around since Android version 1.5 way back in 2009, but you can only add them to the home screen on most devices. Android used to let you add widgets to the lock screen as well, but this capability was removed with Android 5.0’s release in late 2014. Now, nearly a decade later, Google is working to bring widgets back to the lock screen in the upcoming Android 15 update. Although the feature hasn’t been released yet, I managed to activate it early in the first beta to give you a sneak peek at lock screen widgets in Android 15.

Before you see what lock screen widgets look like in Android 15, there are a few things I need to mention. First, this hands-on was recorded on a device running Android 15 beta 1. Beta 1 is only one of four planned beta releases, which means a lot can change between now and Android 15’s stable release later this year. Second, the lock screen widget feature is clearly unfinished, with several glaring UI bugs. Most notably, certain UI elements from the lock screen — such as the clock — are overlaid on top of the widgets screen. Lastly, lock screen widgets are currently available only on devices with support for Android’s Hub Mode feature. This includes select tablets like the Pixel Tablet but excludes book-style foldables like the Pixel Fold as well as all Pixel smartphones.

With that out of the way, let’s take a look at the current state of lock screen widget support in Android 15. The first thing you need to do is enable the feature by going to Settings > Hub mode and toggling “show widgets on lock screen.” There’s another toggle you can flip called “allow any widget on lock screen,” which does exactly what it implies. Without this, only widgets with categories set to KEYGUARD can be added to the lock screen. KEYGUARD is a widget category Google introduced in Android 4.2 — the version of the OS that first introduced lock screen widget support — that very few apps utilize today.

Once you’ve enabled lock screen widgets in settings, you can access the widget area (called the “glanceable hub”) by swiping inward from the right edge of the lock screen. The first time you access the glanceable hub, you’ll see a card with a button to add a widget. After dismissing the card once, it won’t appear ever again, but you can add widgets later by long-pressing anywhere and then tapping on the “customize widgets” button that appears at the very top.

Tapping on either button opens a widget editor screen where widgets can be added, removed, or rearranged (but sadly not resized). Before you can access the widget editor screen, though, you need to unlock your device. This ensures nobody else can add a widget that shows your private data without your consent. Once you’ve added the widgets you want, though, you can take a peek at them without unlocking your device.

If I had to guess why Google is limiting lock screen widget support to tablets running Android 15, I’d say it’s because tablets are realistically the only devices with large enough screens to show multiple widgets on a single page without resizing any of them. Samsung managed to fit widgets into the lock screen on phones, but it only allows a few handpicked options unless you use a separate, optional Good Lock module. A better approach might be to move the At a Glance “widget” to the bottom of the lock screen and embed views from third-party apps, à la Live Activities in iOS. There are hints that Google is trying this approach, but it remains to be seen whether it will follow through with it.

In any case, I’ll be keeping a close eye on the development of lock screen widget support in Android 15 because there’s still a ways to go before it’s ready for prime time.

Special thanks to developer Kieron Quinn for his assistance in getting this feature working!

In May 2020, the NFC Forum introduced NFC Wireless Charging, a standard for offering wireless charging over Near-Field Communication (NFC). This specification offers up to 1W of power transfer over a distance of 2cm. So, if there are two devices supporting this protocol, one device can send up to 1W of power to another device wirelessly using NFC.

This technology can be very helpful in offering wireless charging over NFC in small devices that feature NFC for data transfer but don’t have enough space to house dedicated wireless charging solutions, such as wireless earbuds, location trackers, and styluses. Sadly, we haven’t seen any devices offering this feature, and that’s most probably because no platform supports it. Well, that could change very soon.

According to a new report from Mishaal Rahman on Android Authority, the system application in Android 15 Beta 1p that handles tasks related to NFC includes a class called ‘NfcCharging‘. It suggests that Google is working on adding support for wireless charging over NFC in Android 15.

If Google plans to offer this feature with the stable version of Android 15, and Samsung enables it on its devices, it will open a whole new world of possibilities. For instance, a Galaxy phone or tablet will be able to charge Galaxy Buds or Galaxy SmartTag over NFC. Unfortunately, the current Galaxy SmartTag models don't have a rechargeable battery. So, Samsung cannot offer this feature on existing SmartTag models.

However, this feature could allow Galaxy smartphones/tablets without wireless charging to charge Galaxy Buds or Galaxy Watches. When  Samsung launches a SmartTag with a rechargeable battery, this technology will enable those Galaxy smartphones/tablets to charge that SmartTag as well.

The post Android 15 could enable wireless charging over NFC appeared first on SamMobile.

Cell towers blanket most parts of the United States and other developed nations, but they still don’t reach many remote areas. If you’re ever in an emergency without cellular connectivity, you’d better hope you were prepared for such a situation, let someone know beforehand about your plans, find an area with limited connectivity, or use a device capable of satellite connectivity to send an emergency SOS. The vast majority of Android smartphones currently don’t support sending text messages via satellite, but Google might be changing that in Android 15.

When Apple launched the iPhone 14 series, one lauded feature was Emergency SOS. Emergency SOS uses special phone antenna hardware to establish a direct connection with low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites. This lets the iPhone send text messages to emergency services without cellular connectivity. During the devastating Maui wildfires last August, several people were able to text for help after the fires destroyed the local cellular infrastructure.

Android 14 was publicly launched with the Pixel 8 series back in October 2023. We’re a few months into the new year, and Google has begun testing the next version of Android with the release of Android 15 Developer Preview 1 for Pixel devices. This is the first available update for Android 15 and is intended for developer use. Still, it gives us a good look at what to expect in the next major release to the Android platform.

Nyní, když společnost Google uvolnila první verzi Androidu 15 Developer Preview pro uživatele Pixelů, začalo mnoho uživatelů, kteří nejsou uživateli Pixelů, přemýšlet, zda a kdy získají přístup k nejnovější aktualizaci.

V úvahu přichází Samsung, který je jedním z největších výrobců Androidu, protože společnost má obrovské portfolio zařízení, která mohou mít na Android 15 nárok. V tomto článku si uvedeme seznam všech zařízení, která by měla aktualizaci získat.

Stojí za zmínku, že stabilní Android 15 by měl být k dispozici v červenci, tedy ještě letos. Pokud jde o operační systém na telefonech Galaxy, budete si muset počkat do konce roku, ale jak znám Samsung, někdy koncem tohoto roku bude pro zařízení Galaxy k dispozici beta program. Jak známe odhodlání společnosti, nepřekvapí nás, pokud většina způsobilých zařízení bude mít nejnovější OS již koncem tohoto roku.

Neztrácejme proto čas a podívejme se na všechna zařízení Samsung Galaxy, která mají nárok na aktualizaci na Android 15. Mějte na paměti, že se jedná o zařízení, která jsou v současné době dostupná na trhu, což znamená, že připravovaná zařízení, jako jsou Galaxy A55 a A35, budou standardně součástí seznamu.

Galaxy S series

• Galaxy S24 Ultra
• Galaxy S24+
• Galaxy S24
• Galaxy S23 Ultra
• Galaxy S23+
• Galaxy S23
• Galaxy S23 FE
• Galaxy S22 Ultra
• Galaxy S22+
• Galaxy S22
• Galaxy S21 FE
• Galaxy S21 Ultra
• Galaxy S21+
• Galaxy S21

Galaxy Z series

• Galaxy Z Fold 5
• Galaxy Z Flip 5
• Galaxy Z Fold 4
• Galaxy Z Flip 4
• Galaxy Z Fold 3
• Galaxy Z Flip 3

Galaxy A series

• Galaxy A73
• Galaxy A72
• Galaxy A54
• Galaxy A53
• Galaxy A34
• Galaxy A33
• Galaxy A25
• Galaxy A24
• Galaxy A23
• Galaxy A15 (LTE+5G)
• Galaxy A14 (LTE+5G)

Galaxy Tab series

• Galaxy Tab S9 FE+
• Galaxy Tab S9 FE
• Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra (Wi-Fi/5G)
• Galaxy Tab S9+ (Wi-Fi/5G)
• Galaxy Tab S9 (Wi-Fi/5G)
• Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra (Wi-Fi/5G)
• Galaxy Tab S8+ (Wi-Fi/5G)
• Galaxy Tab S8 (Wi-Fi/5G)

Galaxy F series

• Galaxy F54
• Galaxy F34
• Galaxy F15

Galaxy M series

• Galaxy M54
• Galaxy M34
• Galaxy M53
• Galaxy M33
• Galaxy M15

Jak jsem již zmínil, nejedná se o definitivní seznam všech zařízení Galaxy, která dostanou Android 15, protože Samsung v nadcházejících měsících plánuje vydat řadu zařízení, která budou součástí tohoto seznamu také. Novou aktualizaci by mělo dostat každé zařízení vydané v roce 2011 a já se nemohu dočkat, až uvidím, jak bude One UI 7.0 vypadat. Podle dosavadních informací nová aktualizace nepřináší masivní vizuální změny, ale staví na základech položených aktualizacemi, které vyšly před ní. Je tedy důležité sledovat, čím ji Samsung vyšperkuje.

Článek Zde je kompletní seznam zařízení Samsung Galaxy, která obdrží aktualizaci na Android 15 se nejdříve objevil na MOBILE PRESS.

Článek Zde je kompletní seznam zařízení Samsung Galaxy, která obdrží aktualizaci na Android 15 se nejdříve objevil na GAME PRESS.

Last week, Google announced the rollout of Android 15 Developer Preview 1 (DP1). However, that initial rollout has been cut short as the tech giant has “temporarily disabled downloads.”

On the Android Developers website, Google announced that it is briefly halting downloads of Android 15 DP1. According to the Mountain View-based firm, the reason is linked to a known issue with sideloading OTA images. It appears that when sideloading the DP1 build, this sometimes triggers a “Device is corrupted” message after the download is completed.

Although Google has temporarily stopped downloads of Android 15 DP1 OTA images, there is a workaround you can still use. Google recommends that instead of sideloading OTA images, developers should flash a factory image to test devices.

There’s currently no word on how long it will take Google to fix the problem and unpause downloads. As this is an early build of Android 15, this news mostly only affects developers. It will only affect average users if this problem delays the stable launch. We’ll have to wait and see if and how this issue will affect the Android 15 release timeline.

Android 14 was publicly launched with the Pixel 8 series back in October 2023. We’re a few months into the new year, and Google has begun testing the next version of Android with the release of Android 15 Developer Preview 1 for Pixel devices. This is the first available update for Android 15 and is intended for developer use. Still, it gives us a good look at what to expect in the next major release to the Android platform.

Android 15 is the next big update for the smartphone platform, and we’re slowly getting more information on the changes it brings. One of the more important changes that Android 15 could bring is the ability for the system to pin Android’s WebView to memory, consequently speeding up apps that rely on WebView for functioning.

Before understanding the change, we need to understand what WebView is and why it is important. WebView, also known as the Android System WebView, is the part of the Android OS that many apps tap into to display a webpage. Apps that want to display a webpage do not need to build a full internet browser, as they can call upon the Android System WebView to display web content.

Many apps use WebView to let users access non-core functionality, such as help pages. Many apps also use WebView for their core functionality. Depending on how many and which apps you have on your phone and how you use your phone, you could be invoking WebView many times daily.

AndroidPolice notes in their report that Android 15 is “pinning” one of the important working components of WebView, which, as we explain above, is used in many apps regularly.

More specifically, Android 15 is locking part of the trichrome library that WebView uses into memory. When app processes are locked into memory, the OS deprioritizes killing them when it needs to free up RAM during regular memory management, and the app process can be called into use quicker without as much draw on resources (as opposed to regularly killing the process and restarting it every time it is needed).

This way, all the apps that rely on WebView will have a marginal improvement in their performance (on the bits that use WebView), especially on devices with less RAM where processes are more frequently purged from RAM.

The report mentions that there is a possibility that Google could revert this change since we are still in the early days of Android 15. It is also possible that OEMs will undo the change when they adopt the Android 15 update for their devices. But the report also notes that WebView could be a good focus with the update, as Google could also make WebView more modular through a new Project Mainline module. So there are exciting under-the-hood changes in store in how apps could work on Android 15.

It’s essential to protect your online accounts so they don’t fall into the hands of hackers, which is why you should use a passkey or enable two-factor authentication (2FA) whenever possible. While some forms of 2FA are more secure than others, some platforms only support the most basic methods, wherein your one-time passwords (OTPs) are sent via email or text. These methods are convenient since they don’t require additional setup, but they are also less secure since they’re easier to intercept. Fortunately, Android 15 might be adding a new feature that prevents your OTPs from being read by malicious Android apps.

While digging through the Android 14 QPR3 Beta 1 update, I discovered the addition of a new permission named RECEIVE_SENSITIVE_NOTIFICATIONS. This permission has a protectionLevel of role|signature, which means it can only be granted to applications with the requisite role or to applications that the OEM signs. While the exact role that grants this permission hasn’t been defined yet, it’s likely that Google doesn’t intend to open this permission up to third-party apps.

<permission android:name="android.permission.RECEIVE_SENSITIVE_NOTIFICATIONS" android:protectionLevel="role|signature"/>

As for why I believe that, it’s because this permission is tied to a new, in-development platform feature that aims to redact sensitive notifications from untrusted apps that implement a NotificationListenerService. This is an API that lets apps read or take action on all notifications. Users need to manually grant apps permission in Settings before the NotificationListenerService API becomes available, though.

Given how powerful this permission and API are, it’s no surprise that Google would want to limit the kind of data that apps can get from them. We don’t know precisely what constitutes an “untrusted” app, but it’s likely any apps that don’t hold the new RECEIVE_SENSITIVE_NOTIFICATIONS permission. This permission would probably only apply to select system apps.

We also don’t know exactly what kinds of notifications Google thinks are “sensitive,” but we have reason to believe they’re referring to notifications with 2FA codes. While digging through the source code for Android 14, we discovered a new flag called OTP_REDACTION that is used to gate “the redaction of OTP notifications on the lock screen.” This flag is currently unused in Android 14, though, as it’s likely something that Google intends to release with Android 15.

With the addition of the OTP_REDACTION flag and the RECEIVE_SENSITIVE_NOTIFICATIONS permission, Android will have three ways to protect users from leaking their 2FA codes to third parties. The OTP_REDACTION flag suggests that Android will stop users from leaking their 2FA codes on the lock screen, while the RECEIVE_SENSITIVE_NOTIFICATIONS permission suggests that Android will stop untrusted apps from reading notifications with 2FA codes. Finally, an existing feature from Android 13 blocks users from enabling an app’s notification listener service if it was installed from an untrusted source.

Last week, Google announced the rollout of Android 15 Developer Preview 1 (DP1). However, that initial rollout has been cut short as the tech giant has “temporarily disabled downloads.”

On the Android Developers website, Google announced that it is briefly halting downloads of Android 15 DP1. According to the Mountain View-based firm, the reason is linked to a known issue with sideloading OTA images. It appears that when sideloading the DP1 build, this sometimes triggers a “Device is corrupted” message after the download is completed.