• il y a 18 heures
Transcription
00:00Hey what's up, MKBHD here and I've got the latest beta of Android 15 on my Pixel 8 Pro right here.
00:10So a lot of you know I've done these videos for a long time.
00:12Like I've made a video on the best features of the latest version of Android for I don't know how many years in a 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.
00:23Which is there used to be huge new features and massive like visual overhauls and all sorts of crazy gigantic things 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 5 features of Android 15, back in the day this 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 actually using and owning your phone a little bit better.
01:02So I can appreciate that.
01:04And I will also say it's felt like in videos in the past I've said that you know this is a version that's only going to show up on the Pixel for at least a year.
01:10And you may never get to see the newest version of Android.
01:13But I feel like with a lot of the newest companies actually promising a good amount of software updates into the future.
01:20Hopefully more people will actually see these couple of things.
01:24So I'm just going to jump right in.
01:25These are the top 5 best features I've found in Android 15.
01:29So number 5 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 else you got in there.
01:45So to turn it on you go to settings and then security and privacy.
01:49And then private space is 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 bottom 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 put 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 you'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 lock 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 can put whatever you want in there.
02:35Totally 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 refined experience.
02:47So number four is the little things.
02:49Like one of them is rich widget previews which obviously is not a huge thing because how often are you actually adding new widgets to your home screen?
02:56Not very much.
02:57But when you do now the widgets that support this will actually show you content that will actually be on them before they get added.
03:04And they're in live, in 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 only 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 one of my actual notion boards instead of a made up one.
03:28Or 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 anything with multiple layers that you can back out of.
03:38I think it's a little bit smoother, a little nicer.
03:40Another one is Bluetooth audio sharing.
03:42You can have multiple headphones paired to the same Bluetooth audio source as long as they support Bluetooth LE which most new headphones do.
03:49Another one is high quality mode when you use your Android phone as your webcam.
03:53Another one is Bluetooth auto on.
03:56So if you turn Bluetooth off on your phone then the next day it automatically gets turned back 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 our 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 things 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.
04:25And 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 showing where you're playing audio to and then all the sliders for volume of everything happening on your phone.
04:39And this is something that's been smaller and in various other forms in previous versions of Android but I like this big one.
04:45It just makes it super clear what's going on and how loud each individual thing is going to be.
04:51So then now we're getting to the top.
04:53Number 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, right?
05:03You just start it, it's your home screen, it's every single app you switch between, everything happening on your phone.
05:09That's a normal screen recording.
05:11But I've been playing with screen recordings here on the pixel with this dev preview and it's a lot smarter about only showing if you want individual single things happening on your phone.
05:22So when you go to initiate a screen recording you can either do the entire screen which is 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 want 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, if I go home and then open another app like Photos and then scroll around in here and then go back home, go back to the Relay app, then scroll some more, that's the screen recording.
05:57Now check this out.
05:58When you go to watch the screen recording it looks normal but then the moment I go home and then go to Photos, see that doesn't show up in the screen recording.
06:06It's still just recording the Reddit app even though it's in the background now.
06:11And then you can see when I get back to it and start scrolling some more it picks up where 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 a security code from another app or anything like that.
06:30It's just me giving you a tutorial on one exact thing that I want to show you.
06:35That's pretty cool.
06:36But then number one, this is one of those things that Android has been really good at and had the 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.
06:51There is adaptive vibrations, there is notification cooldown, there is custom vibrations, there's a whole bunch of stuff.
06:58So I'll walk through each.
06:59So adaptive vibration is fascinating.
07:02It kind of just seems like another one of those magic feeling Google things, but you go into vibration settings and just turn it on.
07:08There is no further settings, but it basically says it's using your phone's mic and other sensors to determine the sound levels around it and potentially even what type of surface it'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 have 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 more 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 cooldown, which is literally just a setting to be able to help you manage when you get a ton of notifications from the same app over and over in a row.
07:54Because we've all been in that group chat that's going nuts or the Slack channel that won't shut up or a sauna or whatever.
08:01Something that's just constantly pinging you over and over with the same app.
08:05And so notification cooldown, when you enable that, will just sort of taper that off and keep 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.
08:17And then this is dev preview two.
08:20And it's not in this one.
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 that's because it's basically hidden to users.
08:29This is something developers have seen, which is individual vibration patterns per app.
08:35Because some of you aren't old enough to remember when smartphones had LED notification lights on them.
08:41Multi-color lights that would actually have a different color light up based on 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.
08:58And I can ignore it.
09:00But if it's a new blinking red light, then it's a new missed call.
09:03And 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 vibration 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 to users as well.
09:30I hope, just like I've been able to pick between a bunch of different weather icon apps for my one app that does weather,
09:36I hope they let me choose between a couple custom vibration sounds or vibration patterns for apps.
09:42Because I would love to customize and feel that I've gotten a Twitter notification and that I can still ignore it.
09:49Now for those wondering, since we check every year, when you go into settings, it doesn't actually say Android 15.
09:55It says Vanilla Ice Cream for this Dev Preview 2.
09:59And when you click into it, this is the animated Easter egg, which looks nothing like Vanilla Ice Cream.
10:04But for what it's worth, it's a little more space-like.
10:07But now here's the thing. If you hold it down long enough, it speeds up all the way and then snaps and turns into this.
10:14This sort of random spacecraft in the middle of what seems like a nearly infinite canvas.
10:20Kind of reminds me of that Asteroids game from back in the day, but you don't shoot anything.
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, 0 out of 10.
10:36So I think if people explore this thing long enough, they're going to find bodies, whatever that means.
10:44But yeah, like I said, a bunch of subtle things, some new notification stuff here and there, some new management usage of your phone type stuff.
10:51It's nuanced. It's subtle.
10:54I'm still excited for some of the bigger AI-based features to drop because that's the stuff that we're expecting to make a big difference to the way we use our phones.
11:02It's just not built into Android anymore. It'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.
11:13Let me know what your favorite one is or if you agree with my order of the top five in the comment section below.
11:18Thanks for watching. Catch you in the next one. Peace.