Android 11 beta hands-on: More controls, more clutter

Builders will have to permit Bubbles for you to start out observing far more apps do the job with this. We’ve attained out to Telegram and WhatsApp to see if they system to help this aspect, and the latter declined to remark. Telegram has still to reply, even though Google says Messages support is coming shortly.

No matter if you favor Telegram, WhatsApp, Messages, Instagram, Fb Messenger or any of the plethora of chat applications accessible these days, it can be a drag to stay on top of all the folks trying to call you. The Android 11 beta capabilities an spot in the notifications shade that consolidates all your messages so you can tackle alerts that have to have a reaction right before attending to your Instagram likes or Twitter hearts. If you just cannot reply straight away, you can also set a reminder to get to it later. I like possessing all my discussions arranged neatly at the top, but there are other items also taking up place in the notification shade like media controls that could make this much less like Marie Kondo-ing and extra like cluttering. 

Easier system and media controls

A single of the matters that would acquire up home in the Rapid Options spot higher than your list of notifications is a new persistent media player. In this beta variation, you’d have to 1st help developer solutions (by consistently hitting the Construct variety at the bottom of the About Mobile phone site), then enabling the “Media resumption” placing. If you do not do this, media controls will glimpse the identical as they did in Android 10. 

After I activated the element, a small widget about the dimensions of 3×2 Brief Options icons appeared, featuring buttons for participate in/pause, upcoming and prior track. This is a smart way for Google to present easy entry to these controls without getting up house in the alerts checklist under, nevertheless it doesn’t display screen album artwork the way the notification-centered controls do. I’m amazed that Google managed to keep the very same 6 shortcuts in the Brief Settings panel, which formerly was a one row of icons, by expanding to two lanes and squeezing the first established of solutions to the ideal. This way, it managed to location this media widget to the remaining for far more controls. If you’d rather a more simple interface, you can disable Media resumption.

In Android 11, you will see far more configurations pop up when you lengthy-press the energy button. In addition to shortcuts for Google Pay out, Crisis data, shutting down and restarting like in advance of, the web site will also demonstrate your connected equipment. I experienced to make certain my Google Household app was installed to start with, and following I did, all my synced lights showed up. My smart speakers, displays and clocks didn’t, while. Google explained to Engadget that not all gadgets on the House application currently clearly show up, and that “we’re doing the job on adding help for extra equipment.”

Each individual light had an unique tile, even though the first tile of the grid managed all of them — you can rearrange this get if you favor. I only have about 5 devices connected so this page was quite workable, but I picture it’d get unwieldy if you have more than ten linked. Tapping the “All lights” tile the moment turned them all on at 8 percent, which is identical to one particular of my preset routines. My coworker Chris Velazco had his lights turned all the way up to 100 percent when he did this, so it’s crystal clear our experience diversified. We’ve arrived at out to Google to clarify how this functions and will update when we hear back again. I couldn’t come across a way to insert other configurations even though, like turning them to 50 percent soon after the 8 p.c stage, so I’ll probably continue to depend on my Google Home for my preset lighting profiles.