Android 15 Hands-On: Top 5 Features!
Android 15 Hands-On: Top 5 Features!
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00:00Hey what's up, MKBHD here, and I've got the latest beta of Android 15 on my Pixel 8 Pro
00:09right here.
00:10So a lot of you know I've done these videos for a long time, like I've made a video on
00:13the best features of the latest version of Android for I don't know how many years in
00:18a row now since they were naming them after desserts.
00:20And if you've been watching all of these then you've noticed a trend, which is there used
00:25to be huge new features and massive like visual overhauls and all sorts of crazy gigantic
00:31things changing with Android.
00:32But now things have stabilized, I would say.
00:35It's a lot more small changes and more nuanced things here and there.
00:39So it's gotten to the point where these top five features of Android 15, back in the day
00:44this would have been like a .0.2 update.
00:47Like these are smaller and smaller new features of each new version.
00:51But on the other hand that actually feels like they're a little more well considered.
00:56They're more about usefulness, they're more about little tweaks here and there to make
01:00actually using and owning your phone a little bit better.
01:03So I can appreciate that.
01:04And I will also say it's felt like in videos in the past I've said that this is a version
01:08that's only going to show up on the Pixel for at least a year and you may never get
01:11to see the newest version of Android.
01:14But I feel like with a lot of the newest companies actually promising a good amount of software
01:18updates into the future, hopefully more people will actually see these couple of things.
01:24So I'm just going to jump right in.
01:25These are the top five best features I've found in Android 15.
01:29So number five is called Private Space.
01:32And it's exactly what it sounds like.
01:35It's a private space on your Android phone for your top secret files and photos and whatever
01:44else you got in there.
01:45So to turn it on, you go to settings and then security and privacy and then private space
01:50is near the bottom.
01:51So you confirm it's you and you pick a Google account and a new lock if you want.
01:56Then this private space is set up and basically you can always find it all the way at the
02:01bottom of your app drawer.
02:02Like that's where it lives.
02:03So obviously if you were to like give someone your phone to borrow for a while, you could
02:06put it in guest mode and it would just basically be a brand new phone for them set up.
02:10But yeah, private space is different.
02:12It's more of just a separate section under a separate lock underneath the phone that
02:16you're already logged into and signed up for.
02:19So it's basically a whole new little section of your phone hidden away behind a second
02:23lock for your top secret activities, apps, files, photos, whatever you want.
02:30And when you want to hide it away again, you just hit lock.
02:33You could put whatever you want in there.
02:36Totally up to you.
02:37Then number four.
02:38So I'm kind of combining a lot of these things.
02:40I've done this in videos in the past.
02:42It's just a whole bunch of the little things that sort of stack up to feel like a more
02:45refined experience.
02:46So number four is the little things like one of them is rich widget previews, which obviously
02:52is not a huge thing because how often are you actually adding new widgets to your home
02:55screen?
02:56Not very much.
02:57But when you do now, the widgets that support this will actually show you content that will
03:01actually be on them before they get added.
03:04And they're in live and real time and represent real things on your phone.
03:08This could have maybe been higher on my list, but at this point it's so new that it's basically
03:11only like two of Google's apps.
03:13Like it's just the clocks and widgets around that.
03:16But it would be nice to see more Google apps and even more third party apps adopt this.
03:22Like I want to see in the example widget before I add it, like my one of my actual notion
03:27boards instead of a made up one or one of my actual contacts instead of a random person.
03:32Another one is this new back animation when you move backwards through like settings or
03:36anything with multiple layers that you can back out of.
03:38I think it's a little bit smoother, a little nicer.
03:41Another one is Bluetooth audio sharing.
03:42You can have multiple headphones paired to the same Bluetooth audio source as long as
03:46they support Bluetooth LE, which most new headphones do.
03:49Another one is high quality mode when you use your Android phone as your webcam.
03:54Another one is Bluetooth auto on.
03:56So if you turn Bluetooth off on your phone, then the next day it automatically gets turned
03:59back on again so you don't have to remember to.
04:01And there's just a whole bunch more little things like that.
04:03It feels like every year Google pays attention to the little things about the way we use
04:08our phones and then can add stuff to help us there.
04:11But speaking of little things, I'm making number three by itself one of those little
04:15things, which is the new volume sliders.
04:18So right now when I hit volume, it looks the way it normally does.
04:21The auto live caption button is still there on the pixel, totally underrated feature.
04:26And then your mode switcher at the top.
04:27But then when you hit the three dots to expand, you get this whole almost full screen overlay
04:33showing where you're playing audio to.
04:36And then all the sliders for volume of everything happening on your phone.
04:38And this is something, you know, that's been smaller and in various other forms and previous
04:43versions of Android, but I like this big one.
04:45Just makes it super clear what's going on and how loud each individual thing is going
04:50to be.
04:51So then now we're getting to the top.
04:52Number two is partial screen recordings.
04:57So I think normally when you do a screen recording on your phone, you just expect to see everything,
05:02right?
05:03You just start it.
05:04It's your home screen.
05:05It's every single app you switch between everything happening on your phone.
05:09That's that's a normal screen recording, but I've been playing with screen recordings here
05:12on the pixel with this dev preview, and it's a lot smarter about only showing if you want
05:18individual single things happening on your phone.
05:21So when you go to initiate a screen recording, you can either do the entire screen, which
05:25is normal or a single app.
05:28So check this out.
05:29If I do single app and then start recording, it gives me a picker to choose which app I
05:33want to record.
05:34I'll pick one of the ones I already have open, Relay Reddit, just for this example.
05:38The countdown starts at the top, and then it's recording this Reddit app.
05:43So I can scroll around, just use it as usual.
05:46But now watch.
05:47If I go home and then open another app like Photos and then scroll around in here and
05:51then go back home, go back to the Relay app, then scroll some more.
05:56That's the screen recording.
05:57Now check this out.
05:58When you go to watch the screen recording, it looks normal.
06:00But then the moment I go home and then go to Photos, see that doesn't show up in the
06:05screen recording.
06:06It's still just recording the Reddit app, even though it's in the background now.
06:12And then you can see when I get back to it and start scrolling some more, it picks up
06:14where it left off.
06:15So it's only specifically showing what I want you to see.
06:19And this is super useful.
06:20I think this is my new default for screen recordings.
06:23You don't have to see a random text message I have coming in or me copying and pasting
06:28a security code from another app or anything like that.
06:30It's just me giving you a tutorial on like one exact thing that I want to show you.
06:36That's pretty cool.
06:37But the number one, this is one of those things that Android has been really good at and had
06:41the edge at for years, which is just better notifications and notification management.
06:46And so far with these two previews, it's even better in specifically a couple of ways.
06:52There's adaptive vibrations, there is notification cool down, there is custom vibrations.
06:57There's a whole bunch of stuff.
06:58So I'll walk through each.
07:00So adaptive vibration is fascinating.
07:02It kind of just seems like another one of those magic feeling Google things, but you
07:05go into vibration settings and just turn it on.
07:09There's no further settings, but it basically says it's using your phone's mic and other
07:13sensors to determine the sound levels around it and potentially even what type of surface
07:19it's on to set the strength of vibration so you can always feel or hear it.
07:23So the idea is if your phone is on like a desk somewhere or a hard surface, it doesn't
07:27have to rattle the thing at maximum strength to be heard.
07:30It can turn it down.
07:31But then if it's on a couch or something softer, it will pick that up and it will vibrate
07:37more loudly or more firmly so you can actually still hear it.
07:40Clever.
07:41And then there's another thing in dev preview one, at least that was called notification
07:45cool down, which is literally just a setting to be able to help you manage when you get
07:50a ton of notifications from the same app over and over in a row, because we've all been
07:55in that group chat that's going nuts or the slack channel that won't shut up or a sauna
08:00or whatever, something that's just constantly pinging you over and over with the same app.
08:05And so notification cool down when you enable that will just sort of taper that off and
08:09keep you updated on when a bunch of new stuff comes in, but not just buzz you over and over.
08:15Now that was in dev preview one, and then this is dev preview two, and it's not in this
08:20one.
08:21It's gone.
08:22I'm not sure why, but I hope they bring that back.
08:23I hope they keep it because that's pretty sick.
08:25And then there's an even more subtle one.
08:26That's because it's basically hidden to users.
08:28This is something developers have seen, which is individual vibration patterns per app.
08:34Cause see, some of you aren't old enough to remember when smartphones had led notification
08:39lights on them, multicolor lights that would actually have a different color light up based
08:44on what app you were getting a notification from.
08:47So I could know without waking up my phone, if I had a blinking blue light happening,
08:51Oh, that's a Twitter notification.
08:53I can ignore it.
08:54Or if it was a blinking green light, then it's a new Gmail notification and I can ignore
08:59it.
09:00But if it's a new blinking red light, then it's a new missed call and I can ignore it.
09:05But then phones all got rid of these lights.
09:06So now we wake up our phones every time we want to check on something.
09:09And if you haven't always on display, that can be useful.
09:12But in a surface shown to developers, they have the ability now to customize their own
09:18vibration pattern specific to their app.
09:22So I think that's pretty sick.
09:24I'm kind of hoping, and this is totally just hoping, but I hope that they surface that
09:29to users as well.
09:30I hope just like I've been able to pick between a bunch of different weather icon apps for
09:34my one app that does weather.
09:36I hope they let me choose between a couple custom vibration sounds or vibration patterns
09:41for apps, because I would love to customize and feel that I've gotten a Twitter notification
09:48and that I can still ignore it.
09:49Now, for those wondering, since we check every year, when you go into settings, it doesn't
09:53actually say Android 15.
09:55It says vanilla ice cream for this dev preview too.
10:00And when you click into it, this is the animated Easter egg, which looks nothing like vanilla
10:03ice cream, but for what it's worth, it's a little more space-like.
10:07But now here's the thing.
10:08If you hold it down long enough, it speeds up all the way and then snaps and turns into
10:13this, this sort of random spacecraft in the middle of what seems like a nearly infinite
10:20canvas.
10:21Kind of reminds me of that asteroids game from back in the day, but you don't shoot
10:23anything.
10:24You just kind of fly around using this thrust vector and explore this gigantic space.
10:30The only thing that worries me is that in the corner it says bodies, zero out of 10.
10:37So I think if people explore this thing long enough, they're going to find bodies, whatever
10:43that means.
10:44But yeah, like I said, a bunch of subtle things, some new notification stuff here and there,
10:48some new management usage of your phone type stuff.
10:52It's nuanced.
10:53It's subtle.
10:54I'm still excited for some of the bigger AI-based features to drop because that's the stuff
10:58that we're expecting to make a big difference to the way we use our phones.
11:02It's just not built into Android anymore.
11:06It's the AI stuff that your phone is capable of that's not in the OS.
11:10It's still good to see good OS features too.
11:12Let me know what your favorite one is, or if you agree with my order of the top five
11:16in the comment section below.
11:18Thanks for watching.
11:19Catch you in the next one.
11:20Peace.