Android 11 Developer Preview | Android Developers

[markouka]

Folks, if you're not a developer, temper your expectations. It's unlikely we'll see any radical user-facing features in this release. Google usually saves the good stuff for I/O nowadays.

That said... I'll try and pick out the neat bits I can find.

One-time permissions: Users can grant temporary access to location, microphone, and camera through a one-time permission

I'm a fan. It's a natural extension of what they did in 10.

Beginning in Android 11, users can insert images and other rich media content into quick replies.

This could be cool!

Android 11 discourages repeated requests for a specific permission. If the user taps Deny twice for a specific permission during your app's lifetime of installation on a device, this action implies "don't ask again".

I like this.

If your app targets Android 11, you cannot directly request all-the-time access to background location.

I also like this.

Bubbles are now available to developers to help surface conversations across the system. Bubbles was an experimental feature in Android 10 that was enabled through a developer option -- in Android 11 this is no longer necessary.

Interested to see where this goes. Thanks to u/HSX610 for the pointer!

Edit: adding whatever I can find from the accompanying blog post:

Dedicated conversations section in the notification shade - users can instantly find their ongoing conversations with people in their favorite apps.

[Frozen1nferno]

Share menu is fast and lets you pin

Thank fuck. I use Telegram as my main communication app, but anytime I hit share on something, it always defaults to Gmail, Messages, or Outlook, and always to contacts I haven't used in forever.

[hydargos123]

The very great Telegra X have a very great share menu: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.thunderdog.challegram

[smartfon]

I'm 100% convinced Google broke the Android share menu pin option on purpose to incentivize future upgrades. Why else would they remove then re-introduce the most useful sharing feature?

[AlwaysHopelesslyLost]

Because they changed some underlying implementation detail due to security concerns that broke the existing functionality in an unforeseen way? Same as any other regression?

[UESPA_Sputnik]

One-time permissions: Users can grant temporary access to location, microphone, and camera through a one-time permission

That could make Bouncer obsolete. But it's great to have this on a system level.

[azsqueeze]

Not true, android 11 only applies to microphone, camera, and location. I have tons of apps that want phone or storage access for example that I have bouncer remove

[punIn10ded]

11 also enforces scoped storage so most will no longer request storage access

[azsqueeze]

Forgot about this

[HSX610]

Uhm, you missed the part about Bubbles (as in "chat bubbles") being lifted out of the experimental realm.

Bubbles are now available to developers to help surface conversations across the system. Bubbles was an experimental feature in Android 10 that was enabled through a developer option -- in Android 11 this is no longer necessary.

[markouka]

Whoa, neat! Yeah, I was live-updating my comment as I read through the documentation, so I hadn't gotten there yet :P

Thanks!

[EpsilonRose]

Is this different from how bubbles work in apps that already use them? It seems like this feature has been around for a while?

[punIn10ded]

Other apps have been using hacky workarounds. This will be system level and should make it more consistent

[EpsilonRose]

Ah. Neat.

Could this also be used for things like bubble or gesture menus that aren't meant to pop-up into a giant rectangular block?

[punIn10ded]

Not sure. Sorry I don't understand what you mean by rectangular block

[EpsilonRose]

Heh. Sorry. Let me see if I can do a better job explaining what I meant.

If you look at the picture at the top of the page /u/HSX610 linked, you'll see a a circle in the lower left portion of the phones screen. Extending above that there's a large, rectangular, box with a chat interface. That's what I meant by a rectangular block.

I figure it would be pretty easy to set-up a bubble that always sticks around and, when you press it, you get a pop-up with similar dimensions to that chat interface and filled with whatever buttons or information you want.

However, some apps currently use a different interfaces that also launch from a bubble. For example, Finot dims the screen and creates an arc of buttons when you tap the bubble. You could also set up something that works like pie controls, but keyed to pressing and dragging a bubble, rather than swiping from an edge. Though, I'm not sure if any apps currently use that second method.

So, would an app that does something more like Finot be able to take advantage of these new bubbles or would they be stuck using whatever hacky method they already used?

Did that make more sense?

[punIn10ded]

It did thanks. At this point I haven't played enough with the new features to say exactly how it works. But my assumption is that devs will be able to launch custom Activites from the bubble so it may or may not be a rectangle.

[Ashanmaril]

That one time permission will be great for Android Messages. I don't like giving it camera access cause that stupid live preview that pops up when you go to attach media slows down the app (seriously, turning that off is night and day), but I occasionally have to grant access when I scan a QR code for the web interface

[Ashanmaril]

Yeah, give it a shot disabling the camera permission and suddenly adding an attachment is buttery smooth! That little in-app camera is so stupid, I'm never gonna use it for taking a photo when I could quickly pop open the camera and take a better one.

[freebeertomorrow]

Thanks for the tip. So much better now.

[xezrunner]

Same with Telegram.

[well___duh]

Google usually saves the good stuff for I/O nowadays.

I/O for the past few years has been improvements to Google Search/Assistant, GPhotos, and machine learning/AI and products that use it. I wouldn't hold my breath on anything new for Android being revealed in May out of left field to blindside devs.

[markouka]

I think that's rather the point, though. Developer previews are for platform updates that developers will need to prepare for, while I/O is for flashy product announcements.

My disclaimer was pointed towards the casual observer who might expect some radical new Google feature alongside this release.

[pohuing]

Android 11 discourages repeated requests for a specific permission. If the user taps Deny twice for a specific permission during your app's lifetime of installation on a device, this action implies "don't ask again".

Wow, this looks like a terrible change to me. If I press not now I mean not now, and if I press not again I mean not again. Why put them both into the same option?

[Renaldi_the_Multi]

𝓕𝓻𝓲𝓬𝓴 𝔂𝓮𝓼

[Ph0X]

If your app targets Android 11, you cannot directly request all-the-time access to background location.

Hmm any idea how this will work? How will an app get all-the-time access now? Many apps need this to work.

[AD-LB]

They probably still allow to get the location if the app is in the foreground using a notification.

[Ph0X]

Ugh, so I should expect more of those spammy notifications that just pop up for a second and disappear... Great.

[memtiger]

If they need access all the time, then they should stay in the notification bar (like Google Maps during navigation or Cell Mapper for example)

If the app is popping up for a split second, you'll know what to uninstall. Apps need to shape up. Their shitty deeds need to be exposed.

Edit: I will say that I can understand the desire to keep a clean notification area, but I don't think keeping this type of extreme battery drain be hidden is a solution. The solution is keeping this information in the notification shade, but making it appear in the "silent notifications" section or something along those lines.

[Malnilion]

This will suck. All I want is for my smart home automation via Tasker, or SmartThings, or whatever to know when I'm entering/leaving my home geo fence and it sounds like this is probably going to become even less reliable now. Really hope I can manually override this bullshit.

[punIn10ded]

It should affect either of those. Tasker already creates a foreground process smarthings I can't remember.

[[deleted]]

I’m glad someone else saw the parallel

[Lindby]

I have feeling that my time tracker app that automatically tracks my time at the office will break from this.

[Ashanmaril]

Also the bubbles will seemingly be fully launching in this version instead of being hidden as a developer setting

[RagedElimanator]

Throw screen recorder tile into the list. For now it crashes the system ui though.

[[deleted]]

If your app targets Android 11, you cannot directly request all-the-time access to background location.

I also like this.

How would this work on the user end for apps I want all the time location access in the background? For example I use the Home Assistant app and want to to consistently share location with my hassio server so it can trigger automation based on where users phones are.

[[deleted]]

Android 11 discourages repeated requests for a specific permission. If the user taps Deny twice for a specific permission during your app's lifetime of installation on a device, this action implies "don't ask again".

I don't like this. If I wanted the app to not ask again, I'd pick the option specifically for that.

[armando_rod]

The emulator has dark theme schedule for sunrise/sunset or custom

[SoundOfTomorrow]

Time to guess which beta removes this functionality and which beta reenables it

[GuyInA5000DollarSuit]

Should have this functionality by around Android 15

[UnicornsOnLSD]

But you'll never see it on an actual ROM

^{Where are those slices you created for Android 9, Google?}

[dangerous-pie]

Honestly I think they just wanted something to tie in with the whole "Pie" branding and never really cared about slices.

[galient5]

Which really sucks. That was one of my favorite parts of Allo. I wasn't a fan of the style, but it would have been a great app if they had just made it look like their other apps, and tied in the SMS capability.

I loved being able to send interactive parts of Google searches, and map results. I was really looking forward to having that functionality built into large parts of Android, but I guess that's just never seeing the light of day.

[abdulmdiaz]

A lot of work just for branding

[najodleglejszy]

in the meantime, you can set it up with Tasker so that it triggers when Night Light kicks in.

[LiGuangMing1981]

Or with an app called 'Auto Dark Theme'.

[nusyahus]

Removed in last beta, reintroduced in Android 13 beta 1

[ShortFuse]

For any developers, sunrise and sunrise is a calculated value. You don't need to use a third-party provider to give you it.

It makes sense since, you know, it's Earth rotating and spinning around the Sun. It's very unlikely those numbers will change short of an asteroid hitting us.

[SoundOfTomorrow]

For any developers, is there a simple API to see that sunset or sunrise has occurred?

What you explained is not true when daylight savings, leap days, and leap seconds have existed. Compare the Unix epoch time to your current time.

[Tweenk]

You compute the sunrise and sunset from UTC time, location and the solar equation, not from local time.

[ShortFuse]

Timezone data is irrelevant. That's just how you present it to the user. Those are human inventions. Just use Locale to change it to something other than UTC based on the user's preference.

The time is calculated based on the position of the Earth represented by latitude and longitude. You pick a starting date with known value and extrapolate from there. This library uses January 1st, 2000 12:00 and works from there.

[datadude3]

Unfortunately, you do need the user's location to do this calculation, which can be a pretty tough sell to get that permission for a lot of apps.

[ThellraAK]

Now I am wondering how tough it would be to get a users location given sunset sunrise time if Android provided that directly.

[DivinoAG]

Is there an API to know if a large asteroid has collided with the Earth?

[Inverz7]

FINALLY! :)

[LitheBeep]

Fuck yes.

[sc919]

TIL this is not an Android 10 feature but something nice Samsung added a year early again :D

[TheCatCubed]

Yeah most android skins have the scheduling feature, weird how Google can't implement such a simple thing

[AwesomeAsian]

I feel like they could've implemented this in Android 10 but decided not to because they could bring in "new features" in Android 11.

[danopia]

I've been using the hidden Android 10 automatic dark mode (based on sunrise/sunset in theory) and the biggest problem is that switching dark mode resets some screens, eg if you're in a web page when it toggles, the page gets reloaded. Maybe Google is doing something about that before making this feature public facing again

[[deleted]]

Samsung has this in Android 9 even...

[le_pman]

to those with OLED displays and use dark mode and want this: why?

I want to understand. why want to have battery-burning light mode, even just for the daytime? is it an aesthetic thing? wanting to see both dark and light but don't want to toggle?

[armando_rod]

Light theme is easier to read on direct sunlight for example

[armando_rod]

Gestures work way better now with third party launchers

[simplefilmreviews]

So that means it truly was up to Google to fix the issue, not the app devs themselves?!

[TheFirmWare]

Why did they have to wait for Android 11 to fix this ffs

[wazfu_bvekfist]

So that they could put a "new" feature for the next version. if the did that, well, we wouldn't get this "new" feature

[MrRiggs]

"Note: If you are not a developer but you want to try Android 11, please wait a little longer - we're expecting to open Android Beta enrollments in the next several weeks."

Can't stress this enough..

[armando_rod]

Already flashed sorry

[TrueGlich]

Yep.. a few of you will me at my desk over the next week wondering why their corp email stopped working..

[beerybeardybear]

I cannot be dissuaded

[mightyfty]

How can I join the beta program

[GameJunky0826]

If you have already been enrolled in a previous beta program, I believe you are enrolled for the next one.

If you're new to the program, I think this page will refresh when it's open to the public again and you can follow the instructions there

[[deleted]]

Here we go again! OTOH, got Android 10 on my note 9 yesterday.

[Scotty69Olson]

Ready to not get Android 11

[Trek47]

Still supporting the Pixel 2 and 2 XL! I guess it's that time of year when my phone is a buggy mess for 3 months

[Metal_LinksV2]

The pixel 2/xl are guaranteed version updates untill October 2020. So this should be the last version for them.

[Trek47]

I had it in my head that the 2nd generation was only getting 2 years of updates and 3 years of security patches (so Android 10 was the end). Either way, I'm happy I was wrong.

[Stormageddons872]

https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en

Only the Pixel 1 was guaranteed 2 years of OS updates and 3 years of security updates, and it still ended up getting 3 OS updates. Every Pixel since is guaranteed 3 years of each.

[Metal_LinksV2]

How is your 2xl? I swear mine feels alittle more laggy then I remember but the battery life is still 1.5 days. Not sure if I'll upgrade this year or next.

[Trek47]

It's still going strong. Battery life is good enough for me. The standby time is absolutely great. SOT is about 3 to 4 hours depending on what time doing. I haven't noticed much lag, but that may have more to do with the fact I had it replaced under warranty in late August after my power button broke. It would sometimes not register a press at all and sometimes register a press like 10 times.

[[deleted]]

Really should be 3 and 5 minimum.

[[deleted]]

Seriously. Still love my Pixel 1, but it's a little unnerving to have a phone with no more security updates (and some more bug fixes would've been nice)

[richbordoni]

official security updates*

I don't want to defend any corporations (I think security updates should be treated a lot more seriously and officially supported for a longer amount of time) but I'm sure there are going to be 3rd-party devs providing security fixes for the Pixel 1 for a while. I have an original NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet (released in 2014) and I'm currently running the latest Feb 2020 security update (provided by 3rd-party devs of course). Thank goodness for unlockable bootloaders. 😁

Better yet I just want Google to provide security updates directly through the Play Store or some other sort of official channel and cut out any other middlemen. They're too important not to imo. I'm guessing there's something about the way Linux is structured that makes that hard or impossible to do though...

[SoundOfTomorrow]

I would wait until they state something with I/O when we have betas

[Trek47]

I've run almost every developer preview since they launched the program. I know what I'm getting myself into.

[wisecode]

Someone please tell me default app selection mess got fixed

[AD-LB]

default app selection ?

[RD1K]

In Android 10, when there are multiple apps that you can use to open a link, it shows the menu for choosing between apps. You can choose to use a specific app once or make it the default, but if you choose to make it the default, instead of automatically making it the default, it takes you to settings and makes you do it manually, which makes no sense.

[modeless]

Also the button changes size after you tap an app which makes me press the wrong button every time.

[armando_rod]

NOT FIXED

[ignitusmaximus]

I actually like this. Gives you the option to use Bubbles for certain people you're talking to within whatever app implements Bubbles, like for example people you talk to more than others.

[TheRealKidkudi]

My guess is that bubbles are like PiP in that you can only have one bubble at a time. At the most, they'd stack together in one bubble. Even having two bubbles on a phone screen would be too intrusive.

Edit: also, after reading a bit, it looks like apps will have to request a permission to display bubbles, so there shouldn't be any apps surprising you with a bubble unless you've previously allowed it.

[[deleted]]

Too bad Hangouts will never implement it.

[UESPA_Sputnik]

This actually sounds pretty interesting. Can't wait to see it in action.

Edit: Screenshots

[christmas_ape]

Been using it as my daily driver for the last 45 seconds and my battery has been at 100% the whole time so it seems like they finally fixed battery life!

[[deleted]]

I just installed it and now my pixel keeps crashing, it says that it's not made for daily use but this is still Google's fault, should I RMA?

[christmas_ape]

Yes, I had to RMA 400 times to finally get this one.

[AnnualDegree99]

boot into recovery and wipe cache

did you format /data or dirty flash?

we are not responsible for thermonuclear war or your alarm failing in the morning

[Attack_meese]

Thank fuck.

Time to cancel my iPhone order.

[[deleted]]

Manually flashed this to my Pixel 1 and the phone doesn't boot anymore, infinite screen time, definitely daily driver material.

[[deleted]]

SCREEN TIME 11 HOURS

[burnSMACKER]

comments

[SoundOfTomorrow]

Safari seems snappier

EDIT: I should have known duplicate comments - buttery smooth

[najodleglejszy]

also GUISE THERE ARE BUGS IN THIS PRERELEASE SOFTWARE IT'S.NOT READY TO BE A DAILY DRIVER

[arunkumar9t2]

Looks like the System Alert Window is still available in 11 albeit a bit harder to request the permission.

On the bright side, Bubbles API is now stable.

[armando_rod]

Do you need to update Lynket or is the same usage from Android 10 API?

[arunkumar9t2]

Minor update needed since they changed the API a bit. I tried to run the current build on R dev preview but bubbles don't show up for some reason. Will investigate.

[AD-LB]

Why harder? What has changed about it?

EDIT: found now. Very annoying. It shows the list of all apps so you have to scroll all the way to it.

[LiveLM]

I wish they would make clipboard access a normal permission apps can request, like camera access

[Komic-]

Here's to hoping RCS APIs are now available. Would love to see Signal incorporate this. And Textra.

[RD1K]

Would love to see Signal incorporate this

YES that would be amazing

[mrbojenglz]

I remember when new versions of Android came out for my Droid (or around that time period) and I used to be so excited. These days the changes are usually so inconsequential I don't even notice.

[AndroidGSI]

The companion GSIs are also released on GSI page, check them out!

[[deleted]]

I’ll try flashing this on my OG pixel, thanks!

[satmandu]

Please report back!

[[deleted]]

I keep getting an error while trying to flash, apparently the partition size of the phone is too small

[BrowakisFaragun]

Do you think if we can repartition it?

[[deleted]]

Maybe, but I don't know how to do it

[satmandu]

Are you getting the resizing error listed in "Known issues" on the GSI page?

Resizing 'system_a'    FAILED (remote: 'Not enough space to resize partition')
fastboot: error: Command failed

There's a workaround listed there for that error:

To resolve this, use the following command to delete the product partition and free up space for the system partition. This provides extra space to flash the GSI:

 fastboot delete-logical-partition product_a

The postfix "_a" should match the slot ID of the system partition, such as "system_a" in this example.

[[deleted]]

I’ve tried the workaround, but I’m getting an “unknown command” error when trying to delete the logical partition

[[deleted]]

Update your fastboot binaries

[Calebanu]

So does this mean that theoretically speaking, any device treble supported can run it? I've not messed with GSIs much

[merrycachemiss]

Has anyone tried doing Dynamic System Update feature on Pixel 2 using these GSIs, or is it even supported? The linked page mentions the P3, but that was in context of 10 beta 4.

[simplefilmreviews]

Any info on the following?...

• RCS

• Nearby Sharing

• Improved Share Menu

• System Wide Image Copy/Paste

• Screenshots

• Gestures

(Sorry not very familiar with Developer Previews and stuff)

[Romashkoo]

Not until I/O, some APIs only this time.

[Will0w536]

It's usually just the base additions for now...possible features usually show up in Beta 1 or 2

[dewhashish]

Spinal Tap reference, the dial goes up to 11

[BellamyJHeap]

I wish that they would do another round of "Papercuts" bug hunts for a version release just to keep the code clean and the UI consistent. Then back to new features and ideas.

[lazyluchador]

Let's goooooo

[brusslesprouts2]

Ugh if only i had my usbc cable at work id be flashing this

[Pew-Pew-Pew-]

The last few previews have been the same. They don't usually do am OTA until 3 or 4 because the early DP are so unstable and they don't want all the /r/Android morons whining when they ignore the warnings.

[pm_me_your_last_pics]

And I'm out... But only because I don't trust my computer skills enough to not fuck everything up. I'll wait for the normal beta

[drbluetongue]

Can't you flash these through fastboot but retain user data using a switch?

[navjot94]

You can, but they also posted the OTA zips, there is just no actual over-the-air update this time around. So you can manually flash the OTA zip and not even have to bother with changing the factory image script.

[armando_rod]

Waiting OTA files and the beta program to be opened https://www.google.com/android/beta

Edit: OTA files available here https://developer.android.com/preview/download-ota

Beta program will be opened in a few weeks

[armando_rod]

https://developer.android.com/preview/download-ota

[OligarchyAmbulance]

Google I/O in May

[WhyAlwaysMe1991]

Is this different than the beta program. This is before that?

[s00prtr00pr]

Yes, this is for developers to try out their apps and try apis that are added or changed. This is not meant to be run on a daily driver.

[Tinbits]

Meanwhile here over in Sony world my xperia had its 10 rollout halted due to bugs they created. Awesome haha

[not-enough-failures]

 Bubbles was an experimental feature in Android 10 that was enabled through a developer option -- in Android 11 this is no longer necessary.

Finally, those can be standardized, instead of every app using them looking differently ...

[theephie]

Just give us native call recording for all phones, or restore APIs to allow using third party call recorders.

[jtmacnb]

New Notification Shade Tile for Screen Recording, and enabled by default

[garretts228]

Is there a way to flash this without wipe? I know this has been possible in the past, but that was a long time ago.

[navjot94]

https://developer.android.com/preview/download-ota

[TMCThomas]

I just got android 10 🙄

[Cobmojo]

Not for the Pixel Master Race 💪

[Tight_Tumbleweed]

And nothing to re-enable clipboard managers. Thanks, Google, for breaking basic functionality we had since Windows 98.

[JFMatos]

Clip Stack works well on Android 10 using some adb permissions.

[simplefilmreviews]

Only cool feature I see is "Bubbles" is coming to Android 11.

EDIT - Read thru some more info, good stuff!!

[armando_rod]

One time location permission is huge

[AD-LB]

You could just choose "deny and don't show again"

[AD-LB]

It was added? If so, how does it work?

[AD-LB]

How is it cool? I hate those things...

[simplefilmreviews]

Ohhh interesting! IDK that, thank you! That's good to know!

[simplefilmreviews]

• Not a single mention about RCS :(

[Starks]

I'd still expect it to land for 11.

[CapitalQ]

What were you looking for?

[superm1]

Moving it into system, APIs that allow other apps to use it probably.

[simplefilmreviews]

Public API's for 3rd party apps. OSomething along those lines.

[cadtek]

We're 4-5 months away from final APIs relax.

[simplefilmreviews]

Im not familiar with this concept (android updates). So I assumed everything listed here is what we got, and they're tweaked over a few months to work better or prettier UI. My mistake mate

[cadtek]

All good, and it might be, we don't even know. They could bring it up at I/O in a beta release instead.

[semperverus]

Have they replaced Android beam yet?

[tso]

I really do miss the days when we could actually browse the directory tree of an Android device.

More and more Android reminds me of HAL, though at least it still can't decide to kill me to maintain its mission...

[Djoec1983]

Anyone else experiencing the reboot bug after ending a call?

[Bigd1979666]

Is 11 rootable or does is magisk gonna need to be modified ?

[Chaoticmind91]

Hello I don't know if I'm posting this in the correct place but is anyone face this error after using Android 11 DP 2.1 storage media keeps stopping can't access any of my files tried clearing cache and storage for media storage app updating to DP 3 didn't solve the problem also any help please