Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Android 11 Developer Preview 2 Everything you need to know!”.
Hello again, ladies and gentlemen, I’m Joe handy from Android Authority comm and today we’re taking a look at the second Developer Preview for Android 11. Before we began we’re only going to discuss the changes from developer preview 1 to developer preview 2. If you want to check out all of the changes in Android 11 in general, check out our previous video on the topic using the card at the top or at the link in the video description. So as usual, let’s start with the UI. By and large, there aren’t a ton of visual changes in the second developer preview, but there are a few.
The first is a revamped styles and wallpapers section that honestly looks pretty nice. The UI includes a larger screen, shot four of your current wallpaper, along with different categories for wallpapers, including the ability to use your own photos. Additionally, there is a clock section that appears to be non-functional at this time, but seems to indicate always on display clock. Theming will be a thing in future.
Builds moving on the notification panel got a little more love this time around. It already divides sections up into alerting, silent and conversations. The second developer preview re tools, the UI to make those divides more pronounced with a cleaner look. Overall, the notification panel also shows ADA notification. History in case you swiped something away, and you didn’t mean to simply swipe the full notification panel open and scroll to the bottom of your notifications to see the history link tap its enable the feature and you’ll see every notification. Your phone gets or leave it disabled to you know not see those things and that’s about it for the new UI elements. Now, let’s talk about some other stuff, believe it or not.
We didn’t see any new features in the second Developer Preview, but we did see improvements to some of the stuff that was already there. For instance, the native screen recorder functionality is a lot better than it was in the first developer preview. It now has some additional options, including the option to record the microphone audio, and you can show the touches on screen. If you want to the recording process is a little smoother than it was before, and it seems a little more stable overall, it didn’t fix the issue of it. Merging the notification with the screen shot notifications, thus preventing you from turning it off without the quick settings.
Dongle, so they didn’t fix everything, yet, additionally, it seems the power menu is on the precipice of a big change. Xa developers found some code to suggest that a new power menu could look something like this, and the code also suggests that this could become the new place, managed smart-home stuff, we’ll know more about that in future. Developer previews and that’s really it for the user facing features except for full front and rear-facing camera support in the Android emulator, which most of you probably don’t need. But there are quite a few under the hood changes as usual under the hood is where most of the noteworthy changes took place in the second developer preview.
However, most of them are fairly minor and aren’t things we can really show, for example. The first thing is a minor change to the scoped storage API. It now better manages cached files fixed some issues and switched up how it did things a little bit. The change is causing some early issues with some file storage apps, but this is a problem that will go away before the full version of Android 11 launches later this year. Another change is synchronized IME transitions. This is a new API that lets developers get a little more creative with their keyboard transition animations, so they look less janky and horrible. Google also improve the call screening service API by adding the ability to not only report call rejection but also give a reason. So the user can understand why the call was rejected in the first place.
Support for foldables improved a little bit with a new hinge angle, addition to Android 11s Android XA P. I basically this lets developers build experiences for foldable phones, based on where the hinge is and with the Galaxy fold having a vertical fold and the motor raiser having a horizontal fold. We’Re really glad Google is tackling this one pretty early. The last big under the hood update is a new resume on boot feature.
If you schedule an update to take place overnight, you don’t have to unlock your phone anymore for apps to continue working. In the background. You still can’t see much of anything until you unlock the phone for the first time, but now apps don’t have to wait for that to receive messages or perform other background tasks. Some other minor tools that you’ll see one day include a variable refresh rate API that lets a developer, set a preferred frame rate for each window in an app.
So, for instance, maybe Netflix lets you scroll menus at 120 Hertz, but then forces it back to 60. Hertz during video playback additionally apps can now check for 5g state to see if the phone is actually connected to 5g. Something developers actually couldn’t do before, and this version of Android 11 fully supports Wireless ADB for those who need that believe it or not. There wasn’t a whole ton of security updates with the second Developer Preview that one big fix was for pixel 4 pixal 4xl owners ii. Developer Preview fixes a previous security feature with the face unlock functionality. It now requires you to have your eyes open when setting and unlocking your phone with face on lock, preventing anyone from using your phone while you’re asleep.
We anticipate more security stuff in later versions of Android 11, but for now that’s it and honestly we’re a little bit surprised as before. Google trucks right along with a bunch of fixes, some additional changes and their drop feeding new features in and letting them simmer before. The final release most of the stuff in that the second developer preview, was for actual developers and, honestly, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. That said, this version feels a bit more stable than the previous one scope: storage issues aside. Of course, still we don’t recommend? Actually flashing this as a daily driver, because it’s simply not ready, yet there isn’t much to say really. We like the notification panel changes and a lot of the new API is introduced.
Here will look awesome when we eventually get to see developers use them, but there just isn’t all that much new stuff compared to the first developer preview. So don’t get too excited about it just yet. This one is for the developers and that’s perfectly okay. We have our Android 11 coverage linked up in the video description below if you want to read up more on any of these new topics, along with any changes that we might find out after this video goes live, and that about does it for this one folks, If you liked this video, you know what to do and if not, you still know what to do hit those links in the video description and stay tuned, because we are your source for all things: Android, thanks again for watching everybody and have a wonderful day. .