Unwrapping the Android 11 Beta, plus more developer updates
Posted by Stephanie Cuthbertson, Director, Product Management
Editor’s note: The global community of Android developers has always been a powerful force in shaping the direction of the Android platform; each and every voice matters to us. We have cancelled the virtual launch event to allow people to focus on important discussions around racial justice in the United States. Instead, we are releasing the Android 11 Beta today in a much different form, via short-form videos and web pages that you can consume at your own pace when the time is right for you. Millions of developers around the world build their business with Android, and we're releasing the Beta today to continue to support these developers with the latest tools. We humbly thank those who are able to offer their feedback on this release.
Today, we’re unwrapping the Beta release for Android 11 as well as the latest updates for developers from Kotlin coroutines, to progress on the Jetpack Compose toolkit, to faster builds in Android Studio, even a refreshed experience for the Play Console.
Android 11 Beta: now available
You’ve been helping us with feedback on the Android 11 developer previews since February, and today we released the first Beta of Android 11 focused on three key themes: People, Controls, and Privacy .
People: we’re making Android more people-centric and expressive, reimagining the way we have conversations on our phones, and building an OS that can recognize and prioritize the most important people in your life:
Conversation notifications appear in a dedicated section at the top of the shade, with a people-forward design and conversation specific actions, such as opening the conversation as a bubble, creating a conversation shortcut on the home screen, or setting a reminder.
Bubbles help users to keep conversations in view and accessible while multitasking. Messaging and chat apps should use the Bubbles API on notifications to enable this in Android 11.
Consolidated keyboard suggestions let Autofill apps and Input Method https://developer.android.com/preview/overview#timeline Editors (IMEs) securely offer context-specific entities and strings directly in an IME’s suggestion strip, where they are most convenient for users.
Voice Access , for people who control their phone entirely by voice, now includes an on-device visual cortex that understands screen content and context, and generates labels and access points for accessibility commands.
Controls: the latest release of Android can now help you can quickly get to all of your smart devices and control them in one space:
Device Controls make it faster and easier than ever for users to access and control their connected devices. Now, by simply long pressing the power button, they’re able to bring up device controls instantly, and in one place. Apps can use a new API to appear in the...
