Top 5 Android 11 Features: Big Tweaks!

Hey what's up guys mkbhd here? Normally, with every new version of Android, we will preview it in the form of an alpha or beta version, then we will delve into it, find the most interesting new

features

and then we will share them with you Guys, this year with Android 11, those previous versions were honestly a bit disappointing as the alpha versions were feature-less and not ready, but now that we're getting close to that time of year when we were supposed to have Google i o, which of course was cancelled, but now that we're getting there At that point, the betas that are coming out, especially this first one, are much closer to being final and there's some good stuff here, so let's dive in. and take a look now, keep in mind that Android as a whole is much better prepared and more mature than a couple of years ago, so a couple of years ago a version update like this could be a complete visual overhaul, This is not a visual review anymore, this requires a lot more tweaking, a lot more tweaking, but there are still some interesting things and some good

features

here, so that's what we're going to look at and, yeah, these are the five features. new main ones.

Android 11. and number five is the updated pixel launcher, so this has been my favorite launcher I guess on any Android phone for a couple of years, every time I buy a new phone I just try to make the screen home screen feels like a pixel, but they've tweaked a few things here, so first of all they let me turn on auto-rotate on the home screen, which corrects me if I'm wrong, that wasn't enabled before, so you can rotate Put your phone on its side like a tablet and just use it like that right away. I don't think I would ever use my phone like this on the home screen.

I almost never put it that way anyway, so it's cool. I don't think that was enabled before. Now there's a new option for your bottom row of apps is app suggestions so basically you move everything up a row and then that whole new bottom row is suggested apps to open on your phone based on learned behaviors and you can set a Suggested app instead down there if you believe it. It should be there permanently and there is also an option in settings to block an app from appearing there, so just check the box if you never want it to be suggested.

This to me is great, I guess if those suggestions become really effective. Okay, but I'm not a big fan of the idea of ​​my home screen being variable. I feel like they should stay locked in place for quick access to everything, now inside the app drawer, they allow you to have that top row as suggestions. Great, I'll leave it at that, it's been that way for years, but yeah, I think I probably won't use that option. So the app switcher is a little different too. The cards are huge, but now you get an app screenshot button to share. and a radio button to select text within the app and now you lose the extra drop down menu up to get into the app drawer and there are some new little animations you caught that you can see the wallpaper changes a little when you pull the notification bar. down and it also changes when you go into the app drawer, it's really subtle, it's super subtle, but okay, so number four is the new media controls at the top.

Now this is an option that is not actually enabled by default. I suspect it's because it's a little buggy and incomplete, but when you go into developer settings and enable it, it puts this little colored media widget at the top of the quick settings dropdown. I think this is cool, it's like an

android

ized version of the iPhone. Quick media toggle settings and since it's at the top it means you'll never have to scroll far to pause whatever music or podcast you're listening to right now, like I said it's a bit buggy but you can have more than one open at a time, but it still doesn't work with all apps, just like it doesn't work with youtube, and sometimes the playback debugger doesn't work, but overall I'm a big fan of this feature, you can also quickly toggle playback devices, so if you have headphones or paired speakers, things like that, you can quickly access that and the little mini player, the color will always match the album art of whatever you're listening to, so again, it's very subtle, but okay, number three three. voice access or voice control full credits to Dieter from The Verge for showing me this.

I saw it on his Twitter. He tweeted a video of him using it and it blew me away. I'll link his tweet below, but it's basically an accessibility feature, so no. everyone will use it but I think anything that improves accessibility on a phone that much could be used by basically anyone and when it gets that good it's worth it so here's how it works so that the voice access feature on If it's not new, you can take advantage of it. from the Play Store it appears in your phone's menus and when you enable it in this new beta version of Android, it controls the phone with your voice and the best improvement here is instead of just saying the number corresponding to what you want to press.

Actually, you can also just say the name of the action and it has become very good at responding. Open Relay Pro. Scroll down. Scroll up. Go home. Open Chrome. Scroll up. Return. Open Twitter. Twitter. This is a test of voice commands in Android 11. Delete all text. come home that's pretty cool then number two hold down the power button which is usually just to turn off the phone or reboot you get even more functionality now not sure why they chose to hold down the power button for these things besides just giving quick access to things that originally weren't quick, but here we are, so now when you press and hold the power button instead of just shutting down, restarting, and taking a screenshot, you get all that stuff plus a shortcut to Google Pay and any other cards and passes. like the boarding passes that you have, which are broken right now in this beta and then also a bunch of smart home switches and I happen to have some compatible smart home things that I can control so I can turn my smart lights on and off and that work.

It seems pretty fast and the Nest thermostat also works quickly and easily and you can even preview the Nest cameras now again. I don't know if putting them here in the power button long press menu is what I expected or what most users will expect to find. here but I'm fine with this side note, if not you can go to system settings in the power menu and remove the things you don't care to have in here and then number one the new biggest change in another one. The Android update is a new classic Android update, so in Android 11 notifications are separated into three categories, there are conversations that alert notifications and silent notifications, so conversations are for messages basically, so the text messages, Twitter, DM or any other app ends up supporting this, I imagine they are lazy. and other messaging apps, the alert notifications are basically all the standard stuff, that's where they normally build up and then the silent notifications are the ones that persist in the background, plus background stuff like the weather or Google Now cards , they also have these. more jelly animations, they're actually pretty sloppy right now in this beta, but I think they can clean them up and they'll look good and that's the real main change.

There are some other little things too, like you can now do bubble notifications. Basically, chat heads are compatible with messaging apps. This is something you can turn on and off in settings. I was never a big fan of chat heads so I'll keep it off and then there's also a fancy new screen that turns on and off. animation, look, there's a lot of little things, definitely little things and that's it for Android 11. My favorite new feature of these is definitely the new media controls on the top little compact widget here because I'm always listening. I feel like listening to some music or a podcast, but I'm curious.

Let me know in the comments section which feature is your favorite of these five. At the end of the day, the unanswered question is when will you receive this update and when will you try it out? these new things because I'm trying them out right now on my pixel 4. and that's what you would expect is a pixel to get it and there's a couple of other pixel models that you can download it and try it out right now some people are literally daily. this beta version, but there is no way to know when a Samsung phone, an HTC phone, a Motorola phone, and a Oneplus phone will receive it, when the carriers will allow it, so I don't know if you want to guarantee that you get them.

The latest features on your phone, basically, you should have a Pixel and it's been that way for a while, but other than that, that's all we know, are the top five features of Android 11. If you have any questions, feel free to leave her below and we can chat about them, but that's all, thanks for watching, we'll see you guys next time, peace.