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Android 11: the list of new features of the update

Discover the characteristics of the Android 11 update and all of its new features that will be available on your smartphone.

                                                                   

                       

   

For 2020, Google is preparing the eleventh version of its operating system, which will naturally be called Android 11. The update will arrive in the third quarter, but the first beta versions will land in May, or in a few days. Enough, already, to be able to list the new Android 11 features, and describe to you what new features will be available to your Android smartphone this year.

Update June 2020: Android 11 is now available in public beta! Find out how to install it on your Android smartphone below.

A reminder of the calendar is necessary before starting. Despite the peculiarity of this year 2020, Google will indeed launch a new version of its operating system. Usually, the first beta versions of newer versions of the Android OS are released in May. This year, although the Google I / O developer conference has been canceled, the period should still be a benchmark for the arrival of the first beta versions of Android 11. In total, there will be 6. By Following this, the official release on the first smartphones is expected in the third quarter . As a reminder, Android 10 was released on September 3. Check out our Android 10 test here.

© Android

🔍 Android 11: list of new features

Discover here all the new Android 11 features known to date. For several weeks, information about Android 11 has been growing, and the list of new features in the update has some rather interesting elements. Overall, the Android 11 update is consistent with the novelties of the smartphone market that we have seen since last year, such as the arrival of new screen formats, the arrival of 90 or even 120 screens. Hz, but also about security and privacy.

Let's take a look at the list of what's new in the Android 11 update.

Video screenshot, finally

Apple offers to make “screenshot video” since iOS 11, released in 2017. With Android the functionality is still not available, and it is still necessary to go through secondary applications to be able to do so. Fortunately, for 2020, things will change and Android 11 will natively offer your screen video recordings, which should be able to be accessed from the control menu available by opening the notifications drawer. The functionality will be referred to as “screen recording”.

Periodic Dark Mode

On iOS 13, it is possible to configure a switch to the native dark mode of your smartphone automatically. Android 11 will provide the same functionality, and it will become possible to program a periodic “dark mode”, for the night for example. This is a display setting that first appeared on Twitter, while the mobile app offers its users to activate dark mode only in the evening, and automatically deactivate it in the morning.

Dark mode on Android © Presse-citron.net

Unclose an application

The next new Android 11 feature to mention should come in handy for any fan who loves to swipe up apps they no longer use so they can close them. The menu dedicated to this function (although not very useful ...) will integrate a new reverse swipe device , allowing users to cancel the closing of an application that they would have wanted to close by accident. Useful if you have made the wrong application to close, and the application in question was performing a background task. We think in particular of Spotify playing a song in your ears, or YouTube playing a particular video that you don't want to have to search again.

Conversation bubbles

Do you usually use Facebook Messenger? Then you must certainly know the conversation bubbles, which the application offers its users so that they no longer need to go to the application to reply to a message. Android wants to generalize this display to all the different conversations that a user can have on a messaging system. Android 11 will therefore add this option. As a reminder, Android already offers the possibility of responding to messages directly from the notifications bar. But this shortcut does not mean that you can read all the messages in a conversation.

The Android 10 update allowed us to restrict access to our location when we were not using an application © Presse-citron.net

🔒 Security and privacy: what's new in Android 11?

Let's come to the new features that will arrive in the Android 11 update, regarding privacy and security in general . As a reminder, Android 10 had already introduced several new features to protect the user from permission requests from mobile applications, in particular on the part of geolocation data. Android 11 adds a little deepening to these areas for improvement.

Unique access to geolocation

The most important novelty on this point should concern single access to location data. On Android 11, after downloading a new application that you require to be able to access your data to geographic location, it is now possible to give permission only . In other words, the agreement for this sending of data will only be effective for a single use of the application. Once it is closed, the application will theoretically no longer be able to access the data and will ask you for access again the next time it is opened. This can be useful for applications that you rarely use.

As a reminder, Android 10 introduced a comparable feature last year. This was an authorization only when the mobile application is used. This allowed users to protect their privacy somewhat, as long as they were not using the application. The Android 11 update and its novelty will allow Android users to be able to have the same functionality as Apple users, who saw it appear on iOS 13 on their side.

A more general access restriction

The second novelty - and which complements the elements below about Android 10 - concerns the widening of restrictions on access to user data for applications. On Android 10, users could therefore choose to grant their agreement only for geolocation when the applications in question were used. From now on, Google explains that this authorization will also be available for access agreements to photo sensors and microphones. Excellent news, which still has a lot to say about the data recorded by our smartphones previously.

A tougher Play Store

Let's finish with the Android 11 updates on the Play Store. Indeed, the Google application store, which is (like the Apple Store) a platform still vulnerable to all kinds of malicious applications, will introduce new criteria for developers. From now on, the applications downloaded by users will no longer be able to request authorizations to access geolocation, if the collection of this information does not allow them to "perform their main function".

Android 11 will be more compatible with new smartphone screen technologies. Example with the 120 Hz screen of the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra © Presse-citron.net

📱 Software / hardware compatibility

Let's finish with these first new features announced with the compliance of Android 11 with new smartphone formats and new screen technologies.

Edge to edge screen, foldable screen

First of all, Google announced that the update to Android 11 will allow brands marketing foldable smartphones to have more suitable integration and operation possibilities. Android 11 will be easier to integrate on smartphones like the new Galaxy Folds, and will also allow smartphones with curved edges or even selfie cameras in the form of a punch to better integrate the display.

90 and 120 Hz compatible

For two years, high-end smartphones have dramatically fluidized their display, thanks to new technologies increasing the screen refresh rate. If the new smartphones with 90 or 120 Hz screens also allow heavier animations, the fact remained that Android was not yet fully compatible with this level of display power. The 11 th version of the operating system Google will correct this problem.

The Android 11 logo / © Google

⌛️ Android 11 availability and warning

This list of Android 11 new features will be updated as we go, and we will offer you a full test of the update when it becomes available in its first consumer version next September. We would like to inform you that the various brands of Android smartphones offer “overlays” to the Google OS, sometimes modifying certain new features, certain designs, or even getting ahead of Android in certain functionalities.