Android 11 … It’s Complicated (Premium)

Google is taking Android to 11 in the latest release, but there’s no real excitement or major new features to discuss, just continued evolution. No, that’s not always a bad thing, and there’s something to be said for a calming hand on the rudder. But with Apple really revving the user experience in iOS 14, it’s kind of sobering to see how little is changing with Android 11, at least from a user experience perspective.

This is particularly problematic for me for a few reasons. Generally speaking, I prefer Android to iOS and by a wide margin. But with Apple finally starting to chip away at some years-old annoyances, it’s eliminating some key Android advantages, and damn does iOS 14 looks great and make Apple’s more privacy-protective platform all the more compelling. On the flipside, there’s little iOS 14 can do to solve Android advantage in hardware choice. And let’s face it, the current iOS flagship, the iPhone 11 Pro Max, is still a brick of a device. It’s just too heavy and awkward.

I just wish Android 11 gave me something—anything—that made my day-to-day experience on whatever handset I did choose—be it the cute Google Pixel 4a, the bland Pixel 4 XL, or the mostly-excellent OnePlus 8 Pro—even a little bit better. But in each case, there’s just not much to see. (That could change with the OnePlus handsets, since Android 11 is currently still in beta.) I pick up the phone, and it’s the same-old, same-old.

Look, I’m not superficial, really. But the lock screen, the home screen, the Google Discovery feed, the Recent apps screen, and the All Apps screen are all either literally identical to their Android 10 versions or are so close I can’t even tell the difference. I mean, give us a little bit of new to look at and look forward to, Google.

Anyway, I can only point to a few items of interest. And they are…

Power menu

When you press and hold on the Power button in Android 10—at least on Pixel devices—a small set of power-related options pop-up in small windows. But this feature, which I’ll call the Power menu, has expanded dramatically in Android 11 and it now provides a full-screen experience.

Here, you’ll find the power-related options as before, plus your default Google Pay payment option and a list of connected Home devices for quick control. This is all really handy and long-pressing the Power button is a reasonable and memorable thing to do.

Screen recording

Belatedly lifting a feature that iOS has had for a while, Android 11 finally includes a built-in screen recording feature that is accessible from quick settings in the notification shade. (If you don’t see it, edit quick settings and add the icon.) I will use this in the future to record short videos for posts, and it lets you record audio (device and/or microphone) and/or show touches on screen, which is nice. You stop recording via a card that appears in the notification shade.

Security and privacy

I like Apple’s stance on security and privacy in iOS, and am particularly happy with some of the changes coming in iOS 14, in particular the addition of approximate location for tracking purposes and a tracking prompt that Apple is apparently now delaying until a 14.x point release in 2021. But Google is making improvements in these areas as well.

In this new release, Google has updated the app permissions prompt to support single-use permissions. That is, you now get an option called “Only this time” which is particularly useful when you only want to let app access your location, camera, or other sensitive data once. The permission expires as soon as you move away from the app. Nice.

Android 11 will also auto-reset permissions for apps you don’t use very often, which seems smart.

But wait, there’s more…

There’s more, of course. If you use chat apps a lot, or God help you, multiple chat apps, then there are two other updates of note: Chats now have their own area, called Conversations, in the notification shade, and the Bubbles feature that Google first tried to add to Android 10 is now available, giving a Facebook Messenger “chat-head”-like experience to any chat app that wants to use it. Frequent screenshotters will enjoy the new editing capabilities. There’s a nice media playback card in the quick settings area of the notification shade for controlling playback and speakers.

And, you know, a ton of other minor changes. Nothing life-changing. Most of it a little boring.