A few hours ago, Google, through the portal of its developers, has had the pleasure to announce that it is now available Android 11. This is the second major update without being accompanied by the name of a sweet And where it has arrived first is the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), but it will soon begin to arrive, if it is not already doing so, to some Pixel, Xiaomi, OnePlus, OPPO and realme phones.
In terms of functions, it comes with many, something that is not surprising because it is a change in number and one of the new versions released every year. The Google / Android developers say they have focused on three issues: communication between people, controls and privacy. Below you have the list of the most outstanding novelties that have arrived with Android 11.
Android 11 highlights
As we read in the developer portal, Android 11 arrives with these news:
- The notifications of the conversations appear in a dedicated section at the top of the shadow, with a design that allows us to find our contacts sooner and special actions, such as opening a conversation in a bubble.
- Bubbles where chats will be minimized. This is something that we have already seen in applications, but which is now expected to extend to the entire operating system. But for this to be possible, developers have to use the new Bubbles API.
- Keyboard suggestions for users improved.
- Device controls for faster and easier access and control of connected devices. This will appear with a long press on the shutdown button, along with the rest of the options that already appeared in past versions and that allow us to shut down, restart, etc.
- Multimedia controls that will improve the switch to an output device for audio and video content, be it headphones, speakers or even a compatible television.
- Permissions once, which will allow us to give an app permission to the microphone, camera or location only once. This ensures more security, since an app will not have permission to spy on us because we have given permission, for example, to the microphone.
- Background location now requires extra steps, which also ensures more privacy.
- Auto-restore of permissions, which can reset the permissions of an app that we have not used for a long time.
- Collected storage to better protect application and user data on external drives.
- System updates from Google Play have now doubled the number of upgradeable modules, reaching up to 12 that will improve privacy, security, and consistency.
- BiometricPrompt API to specify the strength of the biometric identifier required by an app to unlock or access sensitive parts of it.
- Credential Identity API, which unlocks new uses such as mobile driver licenses, National ID and Digital ID.
- Extended 5G support.
- New types of screen.
- Call filter support.
- The operating system is now more dynamic and resilient, in part because memory reclamation processes have been tuned.
- Synchronized IME transitions, which will allow us to synchronize the content of our apps with the input method editor (IME) or the on-screen keyboard and system bars.
- Animated HEIF drawables.
- Native image decoder.
- Low latency video decoding in MediaCodec.
- Variable refresh rate.
- Dynamic resource loader.
- NNAPI 1.3.
Available from September 8
As we have mentioned, Android 11 is available from yesterday, September 8 like AOSP, but it also started to reach Pixel, OnePlus, Xiaomi, OPPO and realme phones. As its own devices, Google does know which are the terminals of its brand that will be updated before, and has specifically mentioned the Pixel 2, Pixel 3, Pixel 3a, Pixel 4 and Pixel 4a, including those that were already linked to the beta program . These users should check if they already have the new update waiting in the operating system updates section. Those who are unlucky will still have to wait some more time.