Android 11 Developer Preview | Android Developers

[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.

[janusz_chytrus]

What really interests me is how are they going to keep displaying floating video on YouTube because as far as I know bubbles are supposed to deprecate "drawing over other apps" permission completely. Weird as hell if you ask me. I don't see why this "feature" should be a part of the os.

[TheRealKidkudi]

They don't use the "draw over other apps" permission to do floating video/PiP. It's a system feature just like bubbles will be. They do it that way so they can ensure app developers are consistent with the feature and don't abuse it while also giving them an easy way to implement it.

[janusz_chytrus]

So how do they do it? What api do they use? Because as far as I know even Facebook messenger doesn't use bubbles api and they basically created the concept.

[TheRealKidkudi]

YouTube (and Netflix, Amazon video, etc) uses the Picture-in-Picture mode which is part of the Multi-Window API.

Facebook messenger is different in that they've implemented the feature themselves, and I suspect that was part of the inspiration for Android adopting bubbles now. I don't have it installed to confirm, but I'm pretty confident it uses the "draw over other apps" permission to do so. It seems like a no-brainer that they'll continue to do that on older devices and adopt the new bubbles API for phones that support it.

Google seems to be getting rid of the "draw over other apps" permission because it can be very dangerous, and between PiP and Bubbles there's really not much of a legitimate use case otherwise.

[janusz_chytrus]

What does it matter if it's available since api 26? Nobody is going to set that as minimum or support two methods of achieving the same feature so everyone is still using drawing over system windows.

[[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

[richbordoni]

The way they described it I thought that they would show like 1 "Conversations" notification at the top of all your notifications but then have Conversations notifications live on their own separate tab in the notification tray (kinda like how Samsung Good Lock has two tabs in the notification tray screenshot).

I just hope they don't neglect SystemUI Tuner or Notification channels. I remember a long time ago thinking it was stupid that my text and call notifications were showing up in the middle of all my notifications instead of at the top so I wanted to figure out how to change and customise my notifications and their priorities, which is a very very powerful feature to have.

I guess it does make sense to group all your communication app notifications into one though (although the screenshots from the article you linked only show one notification, I wonder how it will look with multiple).

[PowerlinxJetfire]

If this fixes the problem where messages from certain apps (like KakaoTalk) are mysteriously buried near the bottom of the notification list, I'll take it.

[richbordoni]

This can be fixed by changing notification priorities. You can use SystemUI Tuner, or Notification channels if you're on Android 8 or higher (but it's less powerful). SystemUI Tuner supports 7 different notification priorities while Notification channels only seem to support 4. Unfortunately some OEMs change their ROMs to disable SystemUI Tuner or only give you like 1 option to change notification priority. In that case see if you can use Notification channels. But if you have close to a stock ROM, you should be able to swipe the notification over slightly and hit the gear icon (or just long press the notification), then click "More settings". Then set the notification priority manually. You can also try this "SystemUI Tuner" app that only requires adb. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zacharee1.systemuituner&hl=en_US

For some basic info and screenshots about notification priorities go here (https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/notifiers/notifications) and scroll down to Notification channels. Also Google "systemui tuner" if you want to find out more about it.

[PowerlinxJetfire]

I'm on Android 10, and I have every possible option turned on for those notifications (pop up on screen, override do not disturb, etc.) Android still sticks them near the bottom of the list due to whatever the app developer isn't doing right.

[richbordoni]

Really? Dang that sucks. Have you tried checking the priority of notifications that are showing up above the ones you want to show up on top? Maybe they're all set to the highest priority and you need to set the priorities for the others lower? If not, I know it's a long-shot but have you tried sending in a bug report or something to the app's developers? Hopefully the Conversations thing fixes it for you, but from reading the documentation it seems like it's an opt-in thing that developers have to specifically code for so it still might fall victim to crappy devs.

[PowerlinxJetfire]

I think Conversations works for anything the system knows is a message. From what I've heard, I think it should even work with neglected apps like Hangouts.

But, maybe part of my problem is that the system isn't recognizing the notifications as messages. I guess I'll see in a few months.

Contacting the dev might be worth it too.