Joe Maring / Digital Trends
Android 15 is this year ’s braggy Android update , and based on what we ’ve assure so far , it ’s going to be pretty tame . Just like Android 14 , Android 15 is n’t examine to pass or reimagine Android . Instead , it ’s all about fine - tuning things .
However , that does n’t mean there’snothingcool extend on . I ’ve been playing with the Android 15 developer preview for a little while now , and in doing so , I ’ve stumble across two underrated feature that I believe a lot of multitude are going to jazz .
Notification cooldown is a lifesaver
Nature Journal recentlypublished a fascinating paperabout the woe of excessive information , with a exceptional mention of smartphones connected to the internet . “ Information overburden fix our power to evaluate information and make effective decision , ” it said .
Those determination remove a fleck too unaired to home . For a person like me , who has at least three to four phones active at any give time on my desk , the barrage of notifications gives me a headache every time I unlock them for testing . Of of course , I could damp them , but the fear of miss a crucial notification from a workplace app is yet another cause of anxiety .
Notifications that beep continuously across the Asaph Hall , my workstation , smartwatches , tablets , and electronic computer are a daily nuisance . But it seems I will finally get some respite with Android 15 . One of the cool feature that I ’ve amount across is something called “ presentment cooldown . ” It does just what the name suggest . Here is how Google describes it :
“ bit by bit low the presentment loudness when you get many consecutive notifications from the same app . ”
Now , I am not trusted how your average notification flood lamp genus Pan out , but mine is dead cataclysmal . For work , I rely on Trello ( three freestanding dashboards with a totality of five channels ) and Asana . Between them , these two apps alone describe for over 200 notifications each day .
Then there are workplace communicating apps like Microsoft Teams and Slack , each with its own contribution of television channel buzzing with breaking news conversations and memes . Finally , there is societal media , with journalist groups on WhatsApp and a few Instagram groups to share memes amounting to a apprisal blowup .
I am not even factoring in the inundation of email , Discord waiter buzzing , and textbook messages here . At the end of the day , it ’s a surefire recipe for notification overload in all its forms — optical , haptic , and audio pings .
But I am glad to describe that notification cooldown has dramatically help me overcome the absolute contempt of pulling the draftsman . I still see the near - eternal scrolling inclination of notification placard , but at least the audio ping did n’t drive me insane .
What I love about the new notification cooldown feature is that it clusters together the notifications from each app . The first notification gets an hearable alert in its full human body , but all successive alerts from the same app keep lowering their sound level until it becomes easy to ignore — or at least not as disconcerting as the same tune reprise like a sonic penalisation .
As I write this , my editor is wind up his Asana task cards for the day , which means I can get 20 to 30 telling within a few minutes . In another team where Trello is the workhorse , the place is even more overactive .
The same applies to my WhatsApp and Instagram group with booster , where one controversial opinion could mean a few hundred messages exchanged between a half - XII college mates . Sometimes , it can get bad , and those are the situation where the apprisal outpouring gets brutal .
Of naturally , there is always the fear that I could escape out on something important . gratefully , notice cooldown offers a option between bit by bit still all app notifications or only the conversations . The latter helped me a lot , especially when I ’m working the ET hours while my Comrade in Asia are have a heated up discussion about the artistic merits of Marvel movies . ( There are none ! )
The only thing that could make this even better is if Google makes the system more granular . By granular , I mean not only per - app controls , but also in - app elements like silencing chemical group schmoose and making exclusion for direct messages and channel annunciation .
Screen recordings go private
Another practically rewarding tool in Android 15 is fond screen recording . The estimation is dim-witted : Before you set in motion the aboriginal concealment recording equipment pecker , the app demand you to take the app that you need to appear in the trance video .
Once the app is found and transcription begin , only that particular app appear in the picture , even if you switch to multitasking and open other apps midway through the transcription .
permit ’s say you select Gmail for fond blind transcription . The moment you interchange to other apps , the last active physique in Gmail appears frozen on the recorded video , and no other natural action outside the electronic mail app is captured . As soon you render to Gmail , the sieve capture resumes .
We often leave alone personal information exposed while apportion such media . For example , you do n’t require a professional physical contact to see what ’s store on your phone outside of the study app . Similar privacy concerns give if you are an educator , lawyer , or even just a normal soul who want to keep screenland transcription stringently limited .
Android 15 is just getting started
Talking about privacy , Google is presently experimenting with a feature call Private Space that will be offered natively on Android phones , similar to Samsung ’s Secure Folder . It allows users to interlock apps so they ca n’t be give without a fingerprint or a passcode .
Google offer something standardised within the Google Photos app good manners of a Locked Folder system of rules , allowing drug user to obscure tender video and photograph . With Private Space , which is yet to be enable on Android 15 , users will be able to do the same for apps in the drawer .
Android 15 has a lot of unexampled features to provide , and they are likely to appear as newer Developer Preview and beta updates arriveahead of a full expiration in the fall . We expect Google to partake more item about the next major tone ending of Android 15at its I / O 2024 event in May .
