Top Features of Android 11 from Developer’s Point of View

On September 3, 2019, the release day of Android 10, the buzz was so amazing the people were buying a new phone just to utilize cool features of Android 10. Currently, the same excitement is being seen around as the upcoming version Android 11 is also coming with exciting features. Certainly, this version will impact Android app development services.

How about discussing some of the features of Android 11 from the developer’s point of view?

For better understanding, let’s divide this article into 3 sections.

1. New Features, API & Security
2. Migration & Compatibility
3. Testing

Requisition:
Go to all of the links in details to really shape your skills.

New Features, API & Security:

Display Cutout API: Based on the continuous innovation with screens, the new API is been developed for Curved & Waterfall screens.

Bubbles API: Bubbles are a way to keep conversations in view and accessible while multi-tasking on their phones. Messaging and chat apps should use this on notifications to enable this in Android 11.

Scoped Storage: As it all started from Android 10, the features are enhanced now such as opt-in raw file path access for media, updated Documents UI, and batch edit operations in MediaStore.

Permissions dialog that includes Only this time option

Permissions: Android 11 is being more transparent with permissions and for that new features are added as Data Access Auditing. By this feature, end users will better identify & rectify potentially unexpected data access. Another is Dialog Visibility which says, by tapping “Deny” twice for specific permission, it will be considered as “don’t ask again” subsequently.

Also, the new One Time Permission contains an option called “Only this time” for temporary one-time permission. Moreover, if the app targets Android 11, you cannot directly request all-the-time access to background location.

Bio-metric Authentication Strength: Android 11 introduces the BiometricManager.Authenticators interface. Also the AuthenticationResult API allows you to check whether the user authenticated using bio-metric or device credentials.

Neural Networks API 1.3: Neural Networks API (NNAPI) is designed for running computationally intensive operations for machine learning on Android devices. In Android 11, the operations and controls are expanded and available to developers.

In this release, some new operations and execution controls are added to help optimize common use cases:

• Quality of Service APIs support priority and timeout for model execution.
• Memory Domain APIs reduce memory copying and transformation for consecutive model execution.
• Expanded quantization support, we’ve added signed integer asymmetric quantization where signed integers are used in place of float numbers to enable smaller models and faster inference.

Migration & Compatibility

The Android 11 Preview SDK includes changes that are not compatible with some older versions of Android Studio. So, for the best development experience with the Android 11 Preview SDK, It is recommended that you install the latest preview version of Android Studio 4.0 Preview.

Though you can compile and test Android 11 apps using Android Studio 3.3 and higher. After all these, you can configure the build and access the features subsequently.

Testing

Android 11 introduces new tools for testing and debugging your app against the behavior changes in the latest version of the platform. The main purpose of the compatibility framework is to provide you with control and flexibility as you test your app with a new version of Android.

One should toggle “OFF” while changing all the apps and should toggle “ON” while targeting specific SDK version. There are some restrictions too.

Things To Remember: Implementing Android 11 in your projects at this time can affect the behaviors.

Known Issues to take care with: android studio and tools, android auto.

There are too many new or extended features available with Android 11, but this article is for those who want to start some hands-on with their projects with Android 11.

If you found any issue regarding android 11, file it in issue tracker after checking Release Notes.

Other Key Features:
• Performant graphics debug layer injection
• Batch operations for media files
• Rich media in quick replies
• Access to media files using raw file paths
• Secure sharing of large data sets
• Requesting and checking for low latency support
• Low-latency decoding in MediaCodec
• NDK image decoder
• Resource loaders
• Updates to the ICU libraries
• CallScreeningService updates
• Wi-Fi Suggestion API
• Mute notification sounds and vibrations during active capture

To know more, visit https://developer.android.com/preview

Android 11 is all set to release on May 12, 2020. Let’s see how its features will bring a radical change in the user experience.

Article Written by Sanket Vekariya