Android 14 is here with personal, protective and accessible features that put users first and celebrate their individuality.
At I/O 2023, Android announced new customization features using generative AI that help make your devices uniquely yours.
Android 12, which starts rolling out on Pixel 3 and above today, delivers even more personal, safe and effortless experiences on your device. It features a totally reimagined and personalized user interface, new privacy features that are designed for your safety, and more seamless ways to get right into your gameplay or even switch to a new device. Here are a dozen of our favorite new features that are coming to Android 12:
Our most personal OS yet
Privacy that puts you in control
4. You can now see when an app is using your microphone or camera thanks to a new indicator in your phone’s status bar. And if you don’t want any apps to access your microphone or camera, you can completely disable those sensors using two new toggles in Quick Settings. Simply flip the switch.
5. Keep your precise location private. Android 12 allows you to choose between giving apps access to your precise location or an approximate location instead.
6. Check out your privacy permissions at a glance. A new privacy dashboard gives you a clear and comprehensive view of when apps access your location, camera or mic over the past 24 hours. If you see anything that you’re not comfortable with, you can manage permissions right from the dashboard.
7. While your wireless headphones need to connect to your phone, they probably don’t need to know where you are. New Bluetooth permissions in Android 12 allow companion apps to connect to devices like watches or headphones without needing to access your location information.
8. Have apps that you haven’t used in a while, or forgot about? Unused apps’ permissions are reset and cached files are removed to help free up space on your device.
Making everything on your phone a little easier
9. Just because you reach the end of your screen doesn’t mean you need to reach the end of your screenshot. New scrolling screenshots will allow you to capture all the content on the page in one image.
10. Spend more time playing and less time waiting for game downloads. In Android 12, select games will allow you to play as you download, so you can jump straight into gameplay without needing to wait for the full download to finish.
11. Wi-Fi credential sharing is getting a whole lot easier. No need to find that old sticky note with your passwords or make your friend type in a complicated combination of characters to login to your WiFi. With Nearby Share, just open your Wi-Fi settings, select the network you want, and tap “Share.”
12. Android 12 makes it easier than ever to transfer all your essentials, memories, messages and data to a new Android phone. All that’s needed is a Wi-Fi connection to transfer from your old phone, or your phone’s cable if you’re switching over from an iPhone.
Android 12 is packed with lots of other great features that you can learn more about at android.com/12. In addition to the rollout to Pixel devices today, Android 12 will be coming to Samsung Galaxy, OnePlus, Oppo, Realme, Tecno, Vivo, Xiaomi devices and more later this year.
Android 11 has arrived! The latest release is all about helping you get to what's important on your phone with easier ways to help you manage your conversations, connected devices, privacy, and much more. In honor of the 11th version of Android, here are 11 new things that are coming in Android 11:
1. I often find myself switching between multiple messaging apps to stay connected with people I care about. In Android 11, conversations across messaging apps will be moved to a dedicated space in the notifications section, making it easy to manage your conversations in one spot. You can also prioritize conversations from the key people in your life so you never miss an important message.
2. Bubbles makes multitasking on your device a breeze. You can now respond to important conversations without having to switch back and forth between what you’re doing and your messaging app.
3. Built-in screen recording is finally here: Now you can capture and share what’s happening on your phone. Record with sound from your mic, device or both—no extra app required.
4. You can now access all your smart devices in one place, simply by long pressing the power button. Control your connected devices like your thermostat or smart lock with a tap, so there’s no need to open multiple apps.
5. Media controls have been redesigned and are more helpful than ever. You can now quickly switch the device your media is playing on, so you can take your music with you from your headphones to your speaker without missing a beat.
6. Android Auto now works wirelessly for all phones running Android 11 as long as you have a compatible vehicle. So you can bring the best of your phone on every drive while skipping the cable—get directions with a tap, talk to send a text, play your favorite media and get help from Google Assistant.
7. One-time permissions will allow you to grant single use access to your most sensitive permissions: microphone, camera and location. The next time the app needs access to the sensors, it must ask you for your permission again.
8. If you haven’t used an app that you installed on your device in a while, you may not want it to keep accessing your data. Android will now “auto-reset” permissions for your unused apps and notify you accordingly. You can always decide to re-grant the app permissions the next time you use the app.
9. With additional Google Play system update modules, even more security and privacy fixes can be sent to your phone from Google Play, in the same way your apps update. So you’ll get these fixes as soon as they’re available, without having to wait for a full OS update.
10. For Android Enterprise users, Android 11 brings the privacy protections you get on a personally-owned device to your company-owned device. The work profile gives your IT department tools to manage a device without monitoring your personal profile data or activity on your phone.
11. If you're using a Pixel 2 or above you'll get additional features to organize and manage your phone, like app suggestions on the home screen based on your daily routines, and new overview actions that allow you to take a screenshot of an app and select text and images, and more.
Android 11 has arrived! The latest release is all about helping you get to what's important on your phone with easier ways to help you manage your conversations, connected devices, privacy, and much more. In honor of the 11th version of Android, here are 11 new things that are coming in Android 11:
1. I often find myself switching between multiple messaging apps to stay connected with people I care about. In Android 11, conversations across messaging apps will be moved to a dedicated space in the notifications section, making it easy to manage your conversations in one spot. You can also prioritize conversations from the key people in your life so you never miss an important message.
2. Bubbles makes multitasking on your device a breeze. You can now respond to important conversations without having to switch back and forth between what you’re doing and your messaging app.
3. Built-in screen recording is finally here: Now you can capture and share what’s happening on your phone. Record with sound from your mic, device or both—no extra app required.
4. You can now access all your smart devices in one place, simply by long pressing the power button. Control your connected devices like your thermostat or smart lock with a tap, so there’s no need to open multiple apps.
5. Media controls have been redesigned and are more helpful than ever. You can now quickly switch the device your media is playing on, so you can take your music with you from your headphones to your speaker without missing a beat.
6. Android Auto now works wirelessly for all phones running Android 11 as long as you have a compatible vehicle. So you can bring the best of your phone on every drive while skipping the cable—get directions with a tap, talk to send a text, play your favorite media and get help from Google Assistant.
7. One-time permissions will allow you to grant single use access to your most sensitive permissions: microphone, camera and location. The next time the app needs access to the sensors, it must ask you for your permission again.
8. If you haven’t used an app that you installed on your device in a while, you may not want it to keep accessing your data. Android will now “auto-reset” permissions for your unused apps and notify you accordingly. You can always decide to re-grant the app permissions the next time you use the app.
9. With additional Google Play system update modules, even more security and privacy fixes can be sent to your phone from Google Play, in the same way your apps update. So you’ll get these fixes as soon as they’re available, without having to wait for a full OS update.
10. For Android Enterprise users, Android 11 brings the privacy protections you get on a personally-owned device to your company-owned device. The work profile gives your IT department tools to manage a device without monitoring your personal profile data or activity on your phone.
11. If you're using a Pixel 2 or above you'll get additional features to organize and manage your phone, like app suggestions on the home screen based on your daily routines, and new overview actions that allow you to take a screenshot of an app and select text and images, and more.
In May, we partnered with Apple to launch the Exposure Notifications System (ENS) and made it available to public health authorities around the world in their fight against COVID-19. The ENS allows public health authorities to develop apps that augment manual contact tracing efforts while preserving the privacy of their citizens. As of today, public health authorities have used ENS to launch in 16 countries and regions across Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America, with more apps currently under development.
In the United States, 20 states and territories—representing approximately 45 percent of the U.S. population—are exploring apps based on ENS. We expect to see the first set of these apps roll out over the coming weeks. The Association of Public Health Laboratories also announced recently that it will host a national key server to support all U.S. states, which will allow people with Exposure Notification apps to receive alerts even if they travel across state borders.
We’ve continued to improve the technology and provide more transparency based on feedback we’ve received from public health authorities and other experts. Public health authorities will continue to make their own decisions about how exposure notifications become part of their plans in controlling COVID-19, and we will work to improve the technology in response to their feedback. Here are some of the changes we’ve already made, as well as some upcoming additional changes.
Since the Exposure Notification API was publicly released in May, we’ve spoken with dozens of public health authorities to understand how the API could be improved to help them better manage the COVID-19 pandemic while preserving privacy. Based on this feedback, we recently launched an update to the API, which includes the following changes:
When an exposure is detected, public health authorities now have more flexibility in determining the level of risk associated with that exposure based on technical information from the API.
Bluetooth calibration values for hundreds of devices have been updated to improve the detection of nearby devices.
The API now supports interoperability between countries, following feedback from governments that have launched Exposure Notification apps.
To help public health authorities build apps more efficiently, we’ve added reliability improvements for apps and developer debug tools.
We’ve improved clarity, transparency and control for users. For example, the Exposure Notifications settings on Android now include a simple on/off toggle at the top of the page. In addition, users will also see a periodic reminder if ENS is turned on.
We’ve heard feedback that public health authorities and developers want more technical guidance about how ENS works. In response, we’ve published the following resources over the last few weeks:
Reference verification server to help guide public health authorities in building a server that allows verification of test results when users report themselves as positive for COVID-19.
Implementation code showing how the Exposure Notification API works underneath the hood.
Telemetry design explaining what de-identified diagnostics data is collected to ensure that ENS is functioning properly and securely.
Additional technical resources will be publicly shared as we continue to improve ENS.
The Exposure Notifications website has more information about ENS, and offers educational and technical resources, as well as the latest updates.
As a quick reminder, here are some of the core privacy protections that were built into ENS:
You decide whether you want to use Exposure Notifications—it’s off unless you turn it on.
ENS doesn’t use location data from your device.
Your identity is not shared with Google, Apple or other users.
Only public health authorities can use this system.
Finally, we’ve received questions about why your Android device location setting has to be turned on if you want to use an Exposure Notification app. We want to explain why this particular setting needs to be on, and how you can control your location settings on Android.
To be absolutely clear, ENS does not use device location, and the policies for using ENS prohibit public health authority apps from requesting or collecting device location. Instead, ENS uses Bluetooth technology to detect when two devices are near each other, without revealing the location of either device. While Bluetooth scanning doesn’t necessarily reveal location, it can in some cases be used to infer your device’s location. For example, if a shopping app scans for the Bluetooth signals of a stationary Bluetooth beacon located inside a store, then the app could infer that you went to that store. So in 2015, with privacy in mind, we designed the Android operating system to prevent Bluetooth scanning unless the device location setting is on. At that time no one could have anticipated that Bluetooth scanning might one day be helpful in controlling a global pandemic like COVID-19.
Our engineering teams have been working to update the next version of Android with Exposure Notifications in mind. On Android 11, which will soon be released, users will be able to use Exposure Notification apps without turning on the device location setting. We’re making this update for Exposure Notifications only, given that ENS has been designed in such a way that neither the system nor the apps using it can infer device location through Bluetooth scanning, and apps that are allowed to use ENS are subject to additional policies that disallow automatic collection of location. All other apps and services will still be prohibited from performing Bluetooth scanning unless the device location setting is on.
But even in current versions of Android, when you turn on the device location setting, your phone continues to prohibit access to any apps, including Google apps, that don’t have permission to use device location. The device location setting is like a circuit breaker in a house: When it’s on, power is flowing to the house, but you can turn the lights on or off in each room. If you turn on the device location setting to use ENS, it won’t affect the decisions you’ve already made about specific apps. You can always view and change which apps have access to your device location by going to Settings > Location > App permissions.
We’re committed to supporting public health authorities as they build tools to fight COVID-19. We’ll continue to improve ENS based on feedback, while ensuring that people can trust in the privacy-preserving design of this technology.
As we shared with you last week, we postponed our beta release of Android 11 so that people could focus on important discussions about racial justice. Today’s release looks differently than originally planned—instead of a livestream event, we’re sharing a few videos and online resources to consume at your own pace when the time is right for you. We humbly thank those who are able to offer feedback on this release at this time. Your feedback is essential in building a helpful mobile platform for billions of people, developers and manufacturers around the world.
Read on to find out what’s new in this year’s release, Android 11.
Across Google, we’ve been thinking about how to help people communicate more effectively with each other. Google Meet is now available to everyone and can support larger meetings, and family mode for Duo lets you doodle on calls and add masks and effects, helping you express yourself in new and fun ways.
To make communication easier and simpler on your phone, Android 11 will move all of your conversations across multiple messaging apps to a dedicated space in the notification section. This makes it easy to see, respond to and manage your conversations all in one place. You can mark a conversation as priority to give it preference so you never miss an important message. These key conversations show up on your always-on display and can even “break through” a Do Not Disturb setting.
Android 11 also introduces Bubbles, a new feature to help you respond and engage with important conversations without switching back and forth between your current task and the messaging app. You can open a bubble for your conversation right from the notification and multitask without missing a thing.
In addition, when you type using Gboard in Android 11, you’ll get relevant and automatic suggestions for emoji and text. This is possible because of secure on-device intelligence that takes advantage of Federated Learning, and it works without Google ever seeing anything you type.
Caption: Android 11 makes it faster and easier to access and control your connected devices
As the world around us becomes more connected with ambient computing, Android 11 is helping you better manage all of your connected devices.
You can now quickly access and control your smart devices in one place by long pressing on the power button. Adjusting the temperature, turning on the lights or unlocking the front door can now be done with a tap without opening multiple apps.
Your device controls will show up alongside other things you need at the ready, like your payment methods or your boarding pass (when we’re flying again). We like to think of it as a “pocket” for your digital wallet, keys and more.
We’re also introducing new media controls in Android 11, making it quick and convenient to switch the device your audio or video content is playing on. It is now easier to bring your music with you from your headphones, to speakers, or even to your TV.
Caption: New media controls in Android 11
Every Android release has new privacy and security controls that let you decide how and when data on your device is shared. Android 11 has even more granular controls for the most sensitive permissions. With one-time permissions you can grant apps access to your microphone, camera or location, just that one time. The next time the app needs access to these sensors, it will have to ask you for permission again.
In addition, if you haven’t used an app for an extended period of time, we will “auto-reset” all of the permissions associated with that app and notify you of the same. You can always choose to re-grant the app permissions the next time you open the app.
Caption: New privacy controls in Android 11: One-time permissions and auto-reset
As we shared with you last week, we postponed our beta release of Android 11 so that people could focus on important discussions about racial justice. Today’s release looks differently than originally planned—instead of a livestream event, we’re sharing a few videos and online resources to consume at your own pace when the time is right for you. We humbly thank those who are able to offer feedback on this release at this time. Your feedback is essential in building a helpful mobile platform for billions of people, developers and manufacturers around the world.
Read on to find out what’s new in this year’s release, Android 11.
Across Google, we’ve been thinking about how to help people communicate more effectively with each other. Google Meet is now available to everyone and can support larger meetings, and family mode for Duo lets you doodle on calls and add masks and effects, helping you express yourself in new and fun ways.
To make communication easier and simpler on your phone, Android 11 will move all of your conversations across multiple messaging apps to a dedicated space in the notification section. This makes it easy to see, respond to and manage your conversations all in one place. You can mark a conversation as priority to give it preference so you never miss an important message. These key conversations show up on your always-on display and can even “break through” a Do Not Disturb setting.
Android 11 also introduces Bubbles, a new feature to help you respond and engage with important conversations without switching back and forth between your current task and the messaging app. You can open a bubble for your conversation right from the notification and multitask without missing a thing.
In addition, when you type using Gboard in Android 11, you’ll get relevant and automatic suggestions for emoji and text. This is possible because of secure on-device intelligence that takes advantage of Federated Learning, and it works without Google ever seeing anything you type.
Caption: Android 11 makes it faster and easier to access and control your connected devices
As the world around us becomes more connected with ambient computing, Android 11 is helping you better manage all of your connected devices.
You can now quickly access and control your smart devices in one place by long pressing on the power button. Adjusting the temperature, turning on the lights or unlocking the front door can now be done with a tap without opening multiple apps.
Your device controls will show up alongside other things you need at the ready, like your payment methods or your boarding pass (when we’re flying again). We like to think of it as a “pocket” for your digital wallet, keys and more.
We’re also introducing new media controls in Android 11, making it quick and convenient to switch the device your audio or video content is playing on. It is now easier to bring your music with you from your headphones, to speakers, or even to your TV.
Caption: New media controls in Android 11
Every Android release has new privacy and security controls that let you decide how and when data on your device is shared. Android 11 has even more granular controls for the most sensitive permissions. With one-time permissions you can grant apps access to your microphone, camera or location, just that one time. The next time the app needs access to these sensors, it will have to ask you for permission again.
In addition, if you haven’t used an app for an extended period of time, we will “auto-reset” all of the permissions associated with that app and notify you of the same. You can always choose to re-grant the app permissions the next time you open the app.
Caption: New privacy controls in Android 11: One-time permissions and auto-reset
With more than two billion active devices, Android is the largest mobile platform in the world. And for the past nine years, we’ve worked to create a rich set of tools, frameworks and APIs that deliver developers’ creations to people everywhere. Today, we’re releasing a preview of a new software development kit (SDK) called ARCore. It brings augmented reality capabilities to existing and future Android phones. Developers can start experimenting with it right now.
We’ve been developing the fundamental technologies that power mobile AR over the last three years with Tango, and ARCore is built on that work. But, it works without any additional hardware, which means it can scale across the Android ecosystem. ARCore will run on millions of devices, starting today with the Pixel and Samsung’s S8, running 7.0 Nougat and above. We’re targeting 100 million devices at the end of the preview. We’re working with manufacturers like Samsung, Huawei, LG, ASUS and others to make this possible with a consistent bar for quality and high performance.
ARCore works with Java/OpenGL, Unity and Unreal and focuses on three things:
Motion tracking: Using the phone’s camera to observe feature points in the room and IMU sensor data, ARCore determines both the position and orientation (pose) of the phone as it moves. Virtual objects remain accurately placed.
Environmental understanding: It’s common for AR objects to be placed on a floor or a table. ARCore can detect horizontal surfaces using the same feature points it uses for motion tracking.
Alongside ARCore, we’ve been investing in apps and services which will further support developers in creating great AR experiences. We built Blocks and Tilt Brush to make it easy for anyone to quickly create great 3D content for use in AR apps. As we mentioned at I/O, we’re also working on Visual Positioning Service (VPS), a service which will enable world scale AR experiences well beyond a tabletop. And we think the Web will be a critical component of the future of AR, so we’re also releasing prototype browsers for web developers so they can start experimenting with AR, too. These custom browsers allow developers to create AR-enhanced websites and run them on both Android/ARCore and iOS/ARKit.
ARCore is our next step in bringing AR to everyone, and we’ll have more to share later this year. Let us know what you think through GitHub, and check out our new AR Experiments showcase where you can find some fun examples of what’s possible. Show us what you build on social media with #ARCore; we’ll be resharing some of our favorites.
When I started working at Google in early 2007, it was before Android, before iOS. Mobile was still niche. And while many of us had a sense that mobile was going to be big, I’m not sure we really realized just how big it was going to get. Fast forward to today, and there are now 2 billion monthly active Android devices globally. This is an extraordinarily humbling milestone—and it’s the largest reach of any computing platform of its kind. Today at Google I/O, we celebrated that milestone and showcased a number of ways we’re working to make Android even more useful, including a beta release of Android O and a new initiative to help bring Android to the next billion users.
Android brings the power of computing to the many screens in your life—from watches to TVs and beyond. We’re excited about the momentum we’re seeing in these new Android platforms too:
Watches: With new partners such as Emporio Armani, Movado and New Balance, Android Wear now enables 24 of the world’s top watch brands.
Cars: Android Auto has seen 10x user growth since last year, supported by more than 300 car models. And just this week, Audi and Volvo announced next generation infotainment systems will be powered by Android.
TVs: With 1 million new device activations every two months, Android TV has doubled its number of users since last year. And today we announced Android TV is revamping its home screen with a new channel-based, content-first experience so you can discover new shows and watch your favorites even faster.
Internet of Things: Android Things, which will fully launch later this year, already has thousands of developers in more than 60 countries using it to build connected devices with easy access to services such as the Google Assistant.
Chromebooks: Chromebooks, which can now run Android apps, comprise nearly 60 percent of K-12 laptops sold in U.S. schools and momentum is spreading. Adoption of Chromebooks in schools has doubled internationally, and we saw 75 percent growth in enterprise as well.
Play: Android users installed a staggering 82 billion apps and games in the past year from Google Play.
Android O, coming later this year, will bring more fluid experiences to your smaller screen, as well as improvements to what we call “vitals” like battery life and security. With picture-in-picture, you can seamlessly do two tasks simultaneously, like checking your calendar while planning a party on a Duo video call. And Smart Text Selection improves copy and paste—because who enjoys fumbling with text selection handles? By using machine learning to recognize entities on the screen—like a complete address—you can easily select text you want with a double tap, and even bring up an app like Maps to help navigate you there.
Under the hood, we’re making your phone startup quicker and your apps faster, and are adding optimizations for developers to help prevent your battery from draining. Because with all of Android O’s new features, you’re going to want a device that can last all day.
O will begin rolling out later this year, but developers can try the preview at android.com/beta now. Read more on the Android Developer Blog.
We know you want to be confident that your Android devices are safe and secure, which is why we’re doubling down on our commitment to security. Today we introduced Google Play Protect—Google’s comprehensive security services for Android, providing powerful new protections and greater visibility into your device security. Play Protect is built into every device with Google Play, is always updating, and automatically takes action to keep your data and device safe, so you don’t have to lift a finger. Play Protect detects and removes apps that might be harmful. And with more than 50 billion apps scanned every day, our machine learning systems are always on the lookout for new risks. We’re also launching Find My Device as part of Google Play Protect, allowing you to locate, ring, lock and erase your Android devices—phones, tablets, and even watches. Google Play Protect is available out-of-the-box on every Android device with Google Play.
We also gave an early preview of a new initiative for entry-level Android devices—internally we call it “Android Go.” The goal is to get computing into the hands of more people by creating a great smartphone experience on all Android devices with 1GB or less of memory. Android Go is designed with features relevant for people who have limited data connectivity and speak multiple languages, and comes to life through three key areas: the Android OS, Google apps, and the Google Play Store. We’re optimizing the latest release of Android, starting with Android O, to run smoothly on entry-level devices. We’re also designing Google apps—like YouTube Go, Chrome and Gboard—to use less memory, storage space and mobile data. And there will be a version of the Play Store that highlights apps specifically designed for the next billion users coming online, while still offering the entire app catalog. All three of these things will ship together, as a single experience, starting in 2018.
If you’re a developer, we’ll be diving into these topics and more over the next three days at Google I/O—you can catch the live stream of 150+ sessions at events.google.com/io/. We’re excited to share more updates with you on all of these Android projects over the next few months.
