Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Top 5 Android Q Features!”.
What’S up guys mkbhd here and Android q letter Q is now out and in beta and this version not a big visual overhaul, which is kind of what the big letter updates used to be, and I missed that a bit. But this is definitely full of a lot of smaller updates that people who use Android a lot will appreciate. So I got Android q beta one on my pixel two available on pixels for now all the way back to the first gen pixel. But it is a beta and there’s some things that are not stable about it. So I wouldn’t put this on your main device, but if you want to try it I’ll link it below so number one, there are some light, theming options which is pretty cool.
So in the settings, if you go to settings advanced developer options and then go all the way scroll all the way, the bottom there’s a theming section with a couple of options: accent, color font and icon shape, so accent, color is kind of cool. There’S a couple built-in options I like the black but there’s also a green and a purple, and when you change the color you can see reflected in the menus and the quick settings and toggles and everything it’s not exactly an RGB selector tool. It’S not totally custom. So you can’t pick whatever color you want, but it’s more than just the default blue, which is cool. Then you can change the default system font if you want, if someone’s into that and then the icon shape is also kind of interesting. So you can change between the normal circle that it typically is to a teardrop, a skwerkel or a rounded rectangle, and each option when you select it will change the icon shape for the icons that are on your homescreen and in your app drawer and in your Quick settings so anywhere, there’s icons.
Basically I actually don’t hate the teardrop or the skwerkel, which is the square circle, but the rectangle was a little boring for me, but hey the option. Is there? Also, we still don’t know if dark mode is gon na, be a thing in android natively, but look what happens when you go into battery saver mode in Android queue when you toggle it, you automatically get basically a system-wide dark theme, even more than an Android Pi. So it darkens the quick settings and the app drawer and everything else and which is, of course gon na help save battery on OLED displays but also looks pretty cool. Now this is battery saver mode, so you probably not want to leave it on all the time because you lose some features and things in battery saver mode, but the fact that it does all that automatically still is something to keep an eye on number two. There’S even more granular control of app permissions, it’s thrilling stuff, but honestly it is pretty important and kind of overdue. So now, with things like location, for example, the first time you open an app that requests your location, you can set it to be on all the time, never or only when the app is running so basically like iOS. I’M glad that options here and there’s number three: new notification: behavior just first swiping, just four swipe direction, so an Android P or any other previous version. You can dismiss notifications by swiping left or right.
However, you want, but then to adjust notification, settings or mute, something you have to do this slightly awkward like half swipe that was kind of easy to mess up, not a huge deal but they’re fixing that with Android Q. So now, notifications only dismiss little swipe to the right and a swipe to the left is just for settings. So now, no matter how far you swipe it’s that more definitive, which each direction does also it’s much more like iOS again so number four, the new share sheet – and this may seem like one of those little tiny things. But if you’ve used Android for more than about a week, you already know this is a huge deal, so every version of Android up until now. If you wanted to share something you hit share and it brings up the share sheet with all the places to send it to then after a massive delay, it also brings some quick sharing options from apps to use frequently, but that delay is painful and annoying to Wait for every single time and if you’re trying to share something real, quick, you can hit share and then go to press an app. But then the quick share options load up on top of it and it moves what you were about to press.
So you press something else by accident. I swear I do this every single day in Android q. This is cleaned up, share shortcuts now all load at once, which is a beautiful thing over and over. It’S such a small detail, but I cannot wait to never have to deal with the old share sheet ever again, then number five. Last but not least, is all the little things just a bunch of little stuff piled together. It’S kind of the theme of this update.
It’S what Android Q is all about, so there’s a new and improved files, app better, looking more organized just overall better than the last one. You get a bit more battery information, so if you enable battery percentage, visible, it’ll also show you when it thinks your battery will run out based on how much time it thinks you have left. So in those quick settings I don’t know how much you can trust that but hey if it’s a pretty good estimate, that’s better than nothing.
You can now also undo removing things from the home screen. So it’s such a small detail, but if you remove like a big custom, widget or something by accident, you can easily just undo it to put it back exactly where it was without having to remember how to set it all up again. No stress lock screen album art.
It’S now blurred a lot when playing music, which looks cleaner, but it’s maybe a little too blurred. I feel like I’d prefer somewhere in the middle between these, then there’s also now behind the scenes. Support for foldable phones, which are coming sooner than you think, and there’s also now this super smooth animation for turning off the display and going into that always-on mode. Now I’ve never been a person to leave on the always-on display, but that animation is pretty slick.
Oh also, there’s now a built-in native Android screen recorder, barely sorta, I mean it’s kind of super buggy. I don’t even know if I can say this really exists yet, but I’m just gon na show it to you anyway. So if you dive into settings system advanced and developer options, then you got a scroll until you find something called feature flags then in feature flags scroll. Until you find one called enable settings, screen record long press and just make sure that is checked it’s not by default.
Once this is checked. If you want to screen record you long press the power button, then long press, the screenshot button and there you go. That gives you the option to start a screen recording and you can also turn on or off audio and show screen touches. If you want, which is handy and then start, and then it’s going so you get a notification drop-down that says you’re recording and you can go about using the phone just like normal, while the screen recording goes. This is one of my favorite features from iOS. They recently added it, although with this one now you can choose to show screen touches and do audio recording.
At the same time, you can do a whole tutorial with this. That’S pretty cool. The one minor detail is, I haven’t, been able to get screen recordings to stop recording yet so you know it’s kind of a deal breaker, but that’s a small detail like the stop button crashes, the UI, the pause button also crashes, the whole app and the cancel Button, just straight up doesn’t work either. So, no matter what I try, it just kind of crashes and everything comes back and the screen recording is still going.
So the only way I could get it to stop was to restart the whole phone, and then the video would never actually show up in my gallery so again beta. This is beta one, but I’m hoping Frehley really hoping that this gets built out into its own feature and Android actually having a screen recording built in would be pretty sweet. Also speaking of screen recordings screen, shots in android q on the pixel now have a cutout for the knotch built into this screen shot. Why I don’t know, there’s also corners on the screen. Shot too, like the rounded corner, shows up can’t say I saw that coming as a feature, but hey at least now. You know when you get a screen shot from someone that they definitely have a notch on their phone, but that’s basically it that’s uh.
That’S mainly. What’S new with Android q there’s some good stuff again a lot of smaller things and not a whole lot of visual refresh. I could put these side by side next to each other and you probably wouldn’t notice, unless I told you but uh, who knows which phones will ever actually get Android q. Most flagships coming out now are just getting P now peppermint but peppermint. Why does it peppermint? It’S pi. I also don’t know what the Q is actually gon na stand, for I tried to think of Q desert names. I literally don’t know any like. I know quiche and I know what like quesadillas q-tip. These aren’t even foods anymore.
Maybe leave your comment below what you think the Q is gon na stand for also shoutout to Android police for their constantly updated feature list of things that they dig through Android Q and fine. They have all the things. I’Ve talked about and many more little things. So I’ll link that below that’s pretty much it. Thank you for watching catch you guys in the next one peace. .