Google released the stable version of Android 11 in summer 2020 after about 3 months of the beta testing period. Google Pixel 5 is the first smartphone that comes with Android 11. Now, most of the other mobile phone manufacturers have released Android 11 updates for their smartphones and they have developed their custom skins on Android 11. Google has added so many features to make their user’s life easier and smarter. Let’s talk about the 11 most important features you must want to know. Keep in mind that some smartphone companies didn’t give you all the Android 11 features added by Google. For example, Samsung didn’t add smart home controls for their power menu. Some features we mentioned below are not available in all smartphone that upgrades or comes with Android 11 but if you have a Pixel phone, it allows you to use all of these features.
Notification
In Android 10 there is no understandable reason for notification organization. But notifications from conversations appear at the top of the notification panel and low priority notifications such as weather or downloads from Google Play appear in the silent section. But in Android 11 there are three categories of notifications, they are Conversations, Alerting and Silent. Notifications from your conversations including all the chat apps and direct messaging apps like Instagram appear in the conversation tab. You can decide the priority of the messages from your contacts. For example, if you want to see the messages from your girlfriend first than the messages from your friends, you can set a higher priority to your girlfriend in the notifications. Also, you can give higher priority to any chat app you want. Notifications from these priority people and apps show up on the lock screen and it is better on always-on lock screens. Alerting and Silent notification section act like silent notifications in Android 10.
Notification History is another very useful Android 11 feature. All the notifications that dropped down to your phone within the last 24 hours store here. If you accidentally swipe an important notification, you can see that notification in there. This feature is not turned on by default and you must turn on it from device settings.
Chat Bubbles
Chat Bubbles is one of the most useful things in the Android 11 features list that gives you an incredible chat experience.
This acts like chat heads in Facebook Massager. Not only Messenger, In Android 11 all the chat apps have a bubble. If you receive a notification from a convention app, it will display a bubble and you can quickly access your chat without opening the app by tapping the bubble. Thanks to chat bubbles Now you can keep going your conversation during browsing, watching a movie, or any other work.
Camera
Android 11 Camera features are very important but they didn’t mention about camera much more in the Android 11 features list. These features are not important for normal users who use their smartphones to capture their memories. But we can’t ignore this. Google had optimized the 3D performance of the camera and your camera with better photo sharing. Google gave some useful things for third-party developers. Some of them are Mute during camera capture, Bokeh modes, camera support in an emulator, etc. Developers can request these features via the new APIs.
Built-in screen recorder
Google has added a built-in screen recorder to capture your screen. You can find it on the quick settings panel. Most people like this Android 11 feature because they don’t need third-party apps anymore to capture their screen. You can record audio from your device’s microphone, additional hardware, or both. This is a very big reason to iPhone vs Android battle gets worse.
Accessibility
Google added some very useful features to make their lives better for people with disabilities.
Voice access is an Android 11 feature like those powered by Google Assistant. People can control their mobile from their voice faster and easier. Intuitive Label is another Android 11 feature. You can give commands to your apps using Intuitive Label from voice access. Also, you can use voice access even when you are offline. Google added a Talkback braille keyboard to Android 11 and you don’t need any additional physical keyboard anymore. Lookout is another Android 11 feature for people with vision or blindness.
Device Controls
Smart Homes is a very important topic these days. People use their smartphones to control their smart home devices. Opening an app is taking some time. People hope to do their controls quickly. Google has understood this problem and they added a quick control menu for your smart home in Android 11. When you press and hold the power button, you can see a menu that you have never seen before. At top of there, you can see the power options just like the previous Android versions. But at the middle and bottom of that menu, you can see Google pay options and smart home controls. You can choose what fund resource you will use for your next Google play transaction. You can pin up to six smart home devices. But you can access all the smart home devices from there. You can do a lot of things without using any app such as lock your door, turn on l, check the door cam, etc.
Media Controls
In Android 10, media player appears to the top of the notifications panel that reserved for notifications from conversations in Android 11. So Google moved the media player to the quick settings panel. The media player isn’t a notification anymore. You can see what app playing that music, cover arts for that music, and basic controls. People use headphones, TVs to continue their listening. you can change the audio output resource quickly from the media player.
Android Auto
Android Auto is a feature that connects your phone to your car or car stereo. In previous Android versions, you can use Android Auto by plugging your phone to your car. Thankfully to Android 11, we can use that feature wirelessly. Only pixel phones could use it wirelessly for the last few years but now we can use Android Auto wirelessly from any smartphone that runs on Android 11. The main thing is you can use your voice to anything during driving. You can play music, listen to audiobooks, get routings from Google Map, call your contacts, send and hear your messages, and many other things with the help of Google Assistant.
Check the compatible devices for Wireless Android Auto
Digital wellbeing
Digital Wellbeing uses to track activities of your phone and give a better report for the usage of apps and other users of your phone. Bedtime Mode is another feature of digital wellbeing. We don’t mention a basic introduction about bedtime mode because it was coming from the previous Android versions. Google added some features to bedtime mode. Now you can get a healthy sleep schedule from the Clock app on Android 11. You can fall asleep with your favorite songs or calming sounds and also wake up with them. You can use the Sunrise alarm and it will brighten your screen to start your day.
Privacy and security
There are lots of features to protect your privacy in Android 11. One-time permission is a big step that Google takes to protect your privacy. When you open an app for the first time, you must permit to access your camera, location, contact, and many other things just like that. A third-party application can get a lot of your sensitive data from this. Now you can grant permission for a specific period. Once that period ended, the app can’t access your device data or hardware. So, there is nothing to be afraid of about using your data from installed apps. Permissions will auto-reset when an app didn’t open for a long time. The app needs your permission again to access your data when opening after a long time. If you denied all permission several times, the app will be blocked from requesting permissions. In Android 11, Google sends security updates right from the Google Play store. You can simply get informed about the latest security updates from there. When rebooting your phone after an update, apps will run immediately. So, you don’t miss any notification.
App suggestions and smart folders (pixel devices only)
Your pixel device makes suggestions based on your routing to organize the 5 apps at the bottom of the home screen. You can access the apps that You use in a specific period of the day faster. For example, when your day started it will display news and social media apps. When evening comes it will display some entertainment apps. This will change according to your schedule but this is another cool Android 11 feature.
Smart Folder is another feature for better organization for your pixel launcher’s home screen. An intelligent based organization tool makes some folders for you by adding matching apps for each other. Both of these features power by Google’s new AI features.
