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00:00Hey what's up guys, MTBHD here.
00:05So typically with every single new version of Android, we'll get an early look at it
00:10in the form of an alpha or beta release, then we'll dig into it, find the coolest new features,
00:16and then share it with you guys.
00:17Now this year, with Android 11, those earlier builds were honestly a little bit underwhelming.
00:22Like the alpha builds were not super feature rich and they weren't ready, but now that
00:27we're getting towards that time of year where we were supposed to have Google I.O., which
00:31was of course canceled, but now that we're getting to that time, the beta builds that
00:35are coming out, especially this first one, are a lot more close to final.
00:39And there's some good stuff in here.
00:40So we're going to dive in and take a look.
00:41Now keep in mind, Android, just as a whole, is a lot more well baked, more mature than
00:49it was a couple years ago.
00:50So a couple years ago, a version update like this could be a whole visual overhaul.
00:55This isn't a visual overhaul anymore.
00:58This is a lot more tweaking, a lot more fine tuning, but there is still some cool stuff
01:01and some good features in here.
01:02So that's what we're going to take a look at.
01:04And yeah, so this is the top five new features in Android 11.
01:08And number five is the updated pixel launcher.
01:12So this has been my favorite launcher, I guess, on any Android phone for a couple years now.
01:16Anytime I get a new phone, I just kind of try to make the home screen feel kind of like
01:20a pixel, but they have tweaked some stuff here.
01:22So first of all, they let me turn auto rotation on, on the home screen, which correct me if
01:27I'm wrong, that wasn't enabled before.
01:29So you can just turn your phone sideways like a tablet and just use it like that right away.
01:32I don't think I ever would use my phone like this on the home screen.
01:36I almost never turn it that way anyway.
01:38So it's cool.
01:39I don't think that was enabled before.
01:41Then there's now a new option for your bottom row of apps to be app suggestions.
01:46So basically it moves everything up a row.
01:48And then that whole new bottom row is suggested apps to open on your phone based on learned
01:53behaviors.
01:54And you can pin a suggested app in place down there if you think it should be there permanently.
01:58And there's also an option in settings to block an app from ever showing up there.
02:02So just check the box if you don't want it to ever be suggested.
02:05This to me is kind of neat, I guess, if those suggestions get really good, but I'm not a
02:10huge fan of the idea of my home screen being variable.
02:15I feel like they should just stay locked in place so I have quick access to everything.
02:19Now inside the app drawer, they let you have that top row as suggestions.
02:23That's cool.
02:24I mean, it's been like that for years, but yeah, I think I'm probably not going to use
02:27that option.
02:28Then the app switcher is also a little bit different.
02:30Huge cards still, but now you get an app screenshot button, a share button, and a select button
02:36to select text within the app.
02:39And you now lose the extra pull down up to get into the app drawer.
02:42And there's some small new animations.
02:44Did you catch that?
02:46You can see the wallpaper shifts a bit when you pull the notification bar down, and it
02:51also shifts when you pull up into the app drawer.
02:54It's really subtle.
02:56It's super subtle, but that's nice.
02:58All right.
02:59So number four is the new media controls up at the top.
03:02Now this is an option that's actually not enabled by default.
03:05And I suspect that's because it's a bit buggy and incomplete.
03:08But when you do go into the developer settings and enable it, it puts this little colorized
03:11media widget in the top of your quick settings pull down.
03:15I think this is sweet.
03:16It's like an Androidized version of the iPhone's quick settings media toggle.
03:21And since it's at the top, it means you never have to scroll very far to pause whatever
03:25music or podcast you're listening to.
03:28Now, like I said, it is a bit buggy, but you can have more than one open at once.
03:33But it doesn't yet work with every single app.
03:35It doesn't work with YouTube yet.
03:36And also sometimes the playback scrubber doesn't work.
03:39But generally, I'm a big fan of this feature.
03:41You can also quickly toggle playback devices.
03:43So if you have headphones or speakers paired, stuff like that, you can quickly get to that.
03:48And the little mini player, the color of it is always going to match the album art
03:53of whatever you're listening to.
03:54So again, very subtle, but that's nice.
03:57All right.
03:58Number three.
03:59Three.
04:00Voice access or voice control.
04:01Full credits to Dieter from The Verge for surfacing this for me.
04:04I saw it on his Twitter.
04:06He tweeted a video of using it and it blew my mind.
04:08I'll link his tweet below.
04:10But basically, it's an accessibility feature, so not everyone's going to use it.
04:13But I feel like anything that improves accessibility on a phone this much could be used by, you
04:18know, anyone, basically.
04:20And when it gets this good, it's worth it.
04:22So here's how it works.
04:23So the voice access feature itself is not new.
04:26You can grab it from the Play Store.
04:27It shows up in the menus of your phone.
04:29And when you enable it in this new Android beta, it's controlling the phone with your
04:33voice.
04:34And the best improvement here is instead of just saying the number corresponding to what
04:38you want to press, you can actually also just say the name of the action.
04:42And it's gotten really good at responding.
04:44Open Relay Pro.
04:48Scroll down.
04:51Scroll up.
04:55Go home.
04:58Open Chrome.
05:01Scroll up.
05:04Go back.
05:07Open Twitter.
05:12Tweet.
05:16This is a test of voice commands on Android 11.
05:23Delete all text.
05:26Go back.
05:28Go home.
05:30That's pretty good.
05:33Okay, so number two, the power button hold, which is usually just to like turn off the
05:38phone or reset, gets even more functionality.
05:41Now I'm not sure why they chose the power button hold for this stuff, other than just
05:46giving quick access to things that weren't originally quick.
05:49But here we are.
05:50So now when you press and hold the power button, instead of just getting shut down, restart
05:54and screenshot, you get all those things plus a shortcut to Google Pay and whatever other
05:58cards and passes like boarding passes you have, which is broken right now in this beta.
06:03And then also a bunch of smart home toggles.
06:07And I happen to have some compatible smart home stuff that I can control.
06:10So I can turn on my smart lights on and off and they work pretty quickly, it seems like.
06:15And Nest thermostat also works quickly and easily.
06:18And you can even preview Nest cameras.
06:20Now again, I don't know if putting them here in the power button long press menu is what
06:24I expected or what most users will expect to find here, but I'm cool with it.
06:29Side note, if you aren't, you can go into the system settings under power menu and take
06:34away the things that you don't care about having here.
06:36And then number one, the biggest new change in yet another Android update is a new notification
06:42shade, classic Android update.
06:44So in Android 11, the notifications get separated into three categories.
06:49There's conversations, alerting notifications, and silent notifications.
06:55So conversations is for messaging, basically.
06:57So text messages, Twitter DMs, or whatever other apps end up supporting this, I imagine
07:02Slack and other messaging apps.
07:05Then alerting notifications is basically all the standard stuff.
07:08That's where you'd have them pile up normally.
07:11And then silent notifications are the ones that are persistent, happening in the background,
07:15more background stuff like weather or Google Now cards.
07:18It's also got these more jelly animations.
07:21They're pretty sloppy actually at the moment in this beta, but I think they can clean them
07:24up and they'll look nice.
07:26And that's the real main change here.
07:28There's also some other little things like you can do bubble notifications now.
07:32So basically chat heads are being supported for messaging apps.
07:36This is a thing you can turn on and off in the settings.
07:39I was never really a huge fan of chat heads, so I'm keeping it off.
07:43And then there's also a new fancy screen on and off animation.
07:46See, there's a lot of little things, definitely little things.
07:50And that is it for Android 11.
07:52My favorite new feature of these is definitely the new media controls up in the top, nice
07:56little compact widget up here, because I'm always listening, I feel like to something,
08:01music or a podcast.
08:03But I'm curious, let me know in the comment section what your favorite feature of these
08:06five is.
08:07Now at the end of the day, the unanswered question is when will you get this update?
08:11Like when will you try this new stuff?
08:13Because I'm testing it right now on my Pixel 4 and that's what you'd expect is a Pixel
08:17to get it.
08:18And there's a couple other Pixel models that can download it and test it right now.
08:21Some people are literally dailying this beta, but there's kind of no way to know when a
08:25Samsung phone, a HTC phone, a Motorola phone and a OnePlus phone are all going to get
08:30it when the carriers will allow it.
08:32So I don't know, if you want to guarantee that you get these latest features in your
08:38phone, you have to have a Pixel basically.
08:41And that's the way it's been for a little while.
08:42But other than that, that's about all we know.
08:45That's the top five features in Android 11.
08:47If you have any questions, feel free to drop them below and we can chat about them, but
08:51that's been it.
08:52Thanks for watching.
08:53Catch you guys in the next one.
08:55Peace.