Android 11: The Standout Features Which Will Redefine Mobile Development

Here’s the muster of all important features of Android 11,  so you know what to expect when you finally get it!

Last year, it sounds like Android 10 just whacked the mobility airwaves. But, thanks to the 2020 iteration of the Android OS – popularly known as Android 11 – it is the latest stable version working towards perfection.

Launched in the summer of 2020 on Google Pixel mobiles, Android is always stepping ahead, making its way to flagships from other companies like OnePlus, Samsung and more.

For good or bad, Android 11 seems similar to Android 10. Though you may observe some differences when you boot it up, don’t worry, that’s where this piece of information comes in!

Word To The Wise: Android 11 launch is only meant for developers, so don’t invest time and efforts searching and installing it on your supported device, else you will swallow the bitter pill.

In this latest upgraded version of the OS, emerging technologies like 5G to Foldable to Machine Learning are built into the core, making it the best bet till now!

But, remember this list doesn’t sheath every new feature. There are significant more minor updates along with new features geared towards developers instead of the user.

What’s penned here are the significant changes that you (Developer and User) must know about.

So, Without Any Further Ado, Let’s Start With What Inspires The Next! 

A Deeper Conversational Experience

Interacting with friends and colleagues is the most crucial thing most people do on their mobiles. And, in Android 11, with the introduction of a handful of changes that have helped development companies and mobile app developers globally to craft more profound conversational experiences.

• Bubbles

Bubbles is a choice to keep the conversation in view and accessible while multitasking. Messaging and chat apps should use the Bubbles API on notification to support this in Android 11. 

• Dedicated Conversations Sections

A solely dedicated conversations section in the notification shade allows users to find their ongoing conversation with people in their favourite apps instantly seamlessly.

• Insert Assets Directly Into Notification

If your app braces the image copy/paste option, you can now let users insert assets directly into notification inline replies enabling richer communication and the app itself. As part of DP1, you will quickly see the image copy support option in chrome and image paste choice via Gboard clipboard.

Besides, Real-Time, bilateral communication apps should also use the sharing/conversation shortcuts API to offer users targets that Android will surface throughout the phone and Bubble API to carry on conversations while using the device in other capacities.

• 5G Experience

5G offers consistently faster speeds and minimal latency to users globally.

With 5G making the debut, it’s possible for mobile users  to extend their Wi-Fi experiences like downloading higher-res game assets or streaming 4K videos. While, for app developers it’s easy to craft new experiences designed specifically for 5G.

To be precise, Android 11 offers enhanced and updated existing connectivity APIs so you can take advantage of 5G’s improved speeds.

Bandwidth Estimator API

 The updated API for 5G makes it easier to check the downstream/upstream bandwidth without polling the network or evaluating your estimate. If the modern approach doesn’t offer support, a default estimation is provided on the present connection.

Dynamic Meteredness API

Opting for Dynamic Meteredness API allows you to check whether the connection is unmetered, and if so, it provides higher resolution or quality that may need more data. To be precise, the APIs are extended to include cellular networks, so it becomes easy to identify users carriers that offer truly unmetered data while connected to the carrier’s 5G network.

New Device Screen To Market

In Android app development, device makers are continuing to innovate by bringing amazing new form-factors and device screens to market. There is extended support for these in the platform, with APIs to let you optimize your apps.

• Hole-Punch and Waterfall Screens

Mobile apps can manage hole-punch screens and waterfall screens using the existing display cutout APIs. So, if you want a new API, let your app use the complete waterfall screen, including the edges, with insets to help you manage interactions near the edges.

• The Unskippables – “Privacy and Security”

Privacy

Privacy has always been the key of Android, and each year Google add more ways to keep users safe and maximize transparency and control. These changes have been popular among users, like in Android 10, the added “while app is in use” permission option to  give users more granular control over their location and restrict background location access.

By now, when given the  “while app is in use” option, 50% of the users choose it. While, in Android 11, the continuous focus is on user privacy with new permission options, updates to scoped storages and the list goes on.

• Scoped  Storage

The continuous effort for better-protected app and user data on external storage made further improvements to help developers migrate more easily. This earlier launched preview includes numerous enhancements, like opt-in raw file path access for media, updated documents, and bath edit operations in MediaStore.

Accompanied with these technical changes, based on your input, the experts are also offering more time to make the right migration, and the changes will automatically apply to your apps when the target is on Android 11.

• One-Time Permission

This element is beneficial for the most sensitive types of data – not merely location but also for the device microphone and camera – users can now readily offer temporary access through one-time permission. This permission means that the app can access the data until the user steps away from the app, and then again, they must request consent for the subsequent access.

Adding on to these platform changes, users tell they want more protection on earlier versions of Android and more transparency around how apps will use this data. So, Google updated Google Play Policy to make sure that apps only request location permissions when indeed required. 

Security

Whether it’s app development in any part of the country, the core focus is on raising the standard for security with each Android version – from reaching more devices with monthly security updates to building more protections into the latest platform.

Unsurprisingly, in Android 11, there is a comprehensive Android defence-in-depth strategy to more areas of the platform with added new features and  APIs for apps.

• Platform Hardening

The latest upgrade has expanded compiler-based sanitisers in security-critical elements, consisting of CFI, Shadow-Call Stack. BoundSan. Besides, they enable heap pointer tagging for apps targeting Android 11 or higher versions to help apps catch memory issues in production.

These hardening improvements may surface more reproducible app crashes in your code, so it’s better to test your apps.

• Biometrics

In this launch, there is expanded biometric support to cater to the needs of a broader range of devices. BiometricPrompt supports three authentication types with different levels of granularity- strong, weak, and device credentials.

Also, they have decoupled the BiometricPrompt flow from the app’s Activity lifecycle to make it easier to include with several app architectures and improve the transaction UI. Every app using biometric auth should move to the BiometricPrompt APIs available in AndroidX for compatibility with earlier versions of Android.

• Find Credentials

Android 11 adds platform support for safe and secure storage and retrieval of verifiable identification documents, like ISO 18013-5 compliant Mobile Driving Licenses. 

• Data Sharing and Safe Storage

Mobile apps can now share data blobs quickly and more safely with other apps through a BlobstoreManager. The Blob Store is an ideal choice for using ML models among several apps for the same users.

Machine Learning On Android Devices

Neural Network API (NNAPI) is designed for running computationally intensive operations for Machine Learning on Android devices. In the latest upgrade, Google is expanding the operations and controls available to developers.

Specifically, in this rollout, there have been newly added execution controls and operations to help optimize common use cases:

• Expanded Quantization Support

Expanded customization support has added signed integer asymmetric quantization where signed integers are swapped with float numbers to allow smaller models and faster interference.

• Quality Of Service APIs

Quality of service APIs braces priority and timeout for model execution.

• Memory Domain APIs

The functionality of Memory Domain APIs minimize memory copying and  transformation for consecutive model execution.

Compatibility and Updates

• Google Play System Updates

Since Android 10, Google has been scaling up the investment in Google Play System Updates to improvise on security, privacy, and consistency across the ecosystem. Thanks to the strong collaboration with device makers, there is massive progress towards this goal and the infrastructure to reach a broader range of devices more quickly and safely.

While, in Android 11, there are added 12 new updatable modules, for a total of 22 modules. The highlights include a permissions module that standardizes user and developers access to crucial privacy controls on Android devices, a media provider module integral to the privacy efforts across scoped storage, and an NNAPI module that optimizes performance guarantees consistent APIs across devices.

• App Compatibility

App compatibility is one of the imperative elements to be considered when talking about the upgrade. Also, to make updates faster and smoother by prioritizing app compatibility, the new platform versions were rolled out.

In Android 11, there are added new processes, developer’s tools, and release milestones to minimize the impact of platform updates.

• Easier testing and Debugging

To test for the compatibility in Android app development, there are many breaking changes toggleable- presenting you can force-enable or disable the changes individually from developer options or ADB.

There’s no longer a need to change the target version or recompile your app for basic testing with this specific change.

• Minimizing The Impact Of Behavior Changes

The changes made in Android OS make it more secure, helpful and efficiently performing, some of these changes affecting developer’s apps. As you start developing Android 11, there is a conscious effort to minimize behavioural changes that could affect apps by closely reviewing their impact and making them opt-in, whenever possible, unless you set targetSDKVersions to “R” your app.

Privacy For Enterprise Users

If you are using an Android phone offered by your office, it’s probably a part of the Android Enterprise Program. This allows your company’s IT department to keep an eye on the phone, make amendments, issue updates etc., since it’s a company asset.

Although, this usually pushes people to carry a different phone for their personal use. But, with Android 11, you can have a personal profile and a work profile, with neither one having any impact on the other. Furthermore, this eventually allows users to swap from their work profile to their profile with confidence that their company’s T department is not mentoring what they are doing there.

For sure, there will be lots of peers who will feel more comfortable carrying around another smartphone. At least, this new feature might sway some users to avoid that, though!

Finally…

Everyone is curiously waiting for the new release. As Android 11 offers better tools for both users and developers, building a mobile app has become more enjoyable than ever.

So, if you are looking for the best mobile app developers, you need to choose prudently!