 Android 11 is the first major release since Google ditched their dessert-focused code names last year. But while Android's naming scheme is now objectively less fun, Android 11 actually has a few more tangible features for users to play with than its predecessor, which focused more on under-the-hood improvements. And yeah, we know that your Samsung or LG phone has probably had all these features since 2011. Can you just let Pixel owners have this moment, please? And can we also take a moment to appreciate our sponsor? Ting is a customer-focused mobile provider and wants to help you save money by getting you to pay only for the mobile data you use. Get $50 in Ting credit when you use our link down below. 🎵 Back in March, we took a look at the Android 11 Developer Preview, and while a lot of features from that release made it through to the final version, some of them actually didn't. Now there are others that did make it through, but they were changed. One of the first unusual things about the release of Android 11 is that it's not only arriving for Pixel devices. Beta versions are already available for select OnePlus, Oppo, Realme, and Xiaomi phones. Now this news would make me a bit more optimistic that Android releases could roll out to more devices on day one if A, these weren't Chinese brands with limited availability in the West, and B, three out of four of them weren't owned by the same freaking company. Also, C, it was just a beta release. So yeah, Android phone manufacturers still suck when it comes to getting new versions of Android onto devices. But because Project Mainline is now in full swing, that's Google's initiative to break the core components of Android into separate modules that can be individually updated through the Play Store, allowing out-of-date devices to get crucial security and feature patches without doing a complete system update. Android 11 brings the total number of mainline modules to 25, up from 13. Plus, big players like Samsung and Microsoft have committed to providing three years of Android upgrades, so the Android update situation should get better, just like lttstore.com has. Have you seen the new big water bottles? Also, look at this shirt. Sweet. Alright, enough preamble, though. Let's get into some features. First up, the new embedded media controls. This feature was included in some of the developer previews, but in the final release, it looks way more polished. When video or audio is playing, these controls can be found in the notification shade as part of the quick settings section. Now, before, they lived down with the other notifications, you know, the common folk. If multiple media sources are active, you can swipe between them or just swipe them all away. You can also tap in the top right corner to switch the audio output device. Thank you! That is an awesome Android 10 feature that was formerly found in the expanded volume menu. Huh, love quick access to that. While these new controls don't clog up your notifications with a giant media control box, they do take up space in the quick settings tiles. So only six tiles are displayed per page instead of nine, meaning that it could take you like three swipes to get to airplane mode. That doesn't seem very quick, especially when the flight attendant catches you using data and you have to get on airplane mode like now, or they're gonna toss you out the airlock. Thanks, Google. Of course, you can just move them around, so. Speaking of airplane mode, turning it on will not turn Bluetooth off if you have wireless earphones connected. That, actually, that's a real thank you, Google, right there. Now, we saw grouped notifications show up in the developer preview, but their behavior and their design is a lot nicer here. Messages are grouped into the conversations category, and this, along with Android 10's ability to categorize app notifications as silent, default, or priority, yes, turn what was a daunting wall of text into far more controlled chaos. Another messaging feature is Bubbles. They're essentially Facebook chat heads, but for any messaging app. So, if you want to use them, you enable Bubbles system-wide, then you can enable them for specific apps and even specific conversations, so that you don't have every random message floating around on your screen. Message bubbles are stacked, so Messenger, Android messages, and WhatsApp will all be accessible from the same bubble. Also, developers have to enable bubble support, so as of now, Microsoft Teams doesn't work with it, for example. But me, well, honestly, I've hated it ever since Facebook first came up with it, so yeah, if you like seeing a constant reminder on your screen that solitude is a farce in modern society, then good news for you, for the rest of us. Well, it's one more thing to leave disabled. Moving on to built-in screen recording, we get to move on to built-in screen recording. It's finally here, in more or less the same form that we saw in the dev preview. You can choose whether to record in-device audio, the microphone, or both, and you can also toggle the visibility of touch inputs. So Pixel owners, you can finally delete those sketchy third-party recorder apps. My apologies, by the way, to the developers of said apps. AZ recorder, actually, very nice. In Android 11, holding the power button now brings up the upgraded power menu. This feature was added to Android 10 via Pixel updates. Originally, in addition to the normal options to restart or turn off your phone, there was also an emergency button providing quick access to 911 and personal details like your name, emergency contacts, and medical details. Then Google Pay cards were added so that you could quickly access payment cards and boarding passes, which is great for the drive-through. Like, seriously, it's freaking awesome. And in Android 11, Smart Home controls have now been added to the power menu, allowing you to turn devices on and off, adjust levels for speakers and light dimmers, and start Google Home routines. The revamped permission system has arrived virtually unmodified from the dev preview, allowing users to grant one-time permissions for certain apps to, say, use your camera or location, but only right now. And then next time you open that app, it will have to ask for permission again. And then apps that do have long-term access will have their permissions reset if they're not used for an extended period of time. This is my personal favorite Android 11 feature, though, even though it's not a huge one. Notification freaking history. I mean, is that all I need to say about it? No? Okay, I'll finish the thing. There's now a settings page that displays every notification you've received in the past 24 hours, so you can find—finally find that one you accidentally swiped away, or that went off in your pocket, and you're like, what even buzzed? I don't even know what's going on, because for some reason, not all notifications have a timestamp. And you can even just use it to relive your favorite notification moments. Sure. Now, if you do install Android 11 on a non-pixel device, you may miss out on a few pixel-first features that Google has added. So in Maps, when you and a contact are sharing locations, you can enter Live View and get an AR indication of where they are. That's pretty cool. You can also allow a suggested apps row to appear on your home screen, containing, you know, whatever apps your phone thinks you might need to use at the moment, since it knows you so well. We're basically all living in a Black Mirror episode at this point. And the multitasking menu now has new options to capture your screen or select text in an app. That one's pretty minor, but it's always annoyed me that on Twitter or in messaging apps, like Google Hangouts, you can only copy the text of the entire tweet or message. So now you can select just a little bit. Thanks, Google, and also, f*** you, Google. And okay, there's time to go through a couple other minor things quickly here. What would be a good name for that? Quack Bats? Quake Bats? Yeah, no. You can pin commonly used apps to the Share menu. Voice Access, which lets you control your phone with just your voice, is more intuitive and responsive. There's support for wireless Android Auto, which is great if your car supports it, although apparently early users have been experiencing glitches. There's better support for playing specific content at various refresh rates per your preferences. And there's now native hinge angle detection for foldable devices. That's cool. And of course, there's 117 new emoji, including the dodo. It's back from extinction, baby. There's also the Easter egg, which is a cute little reference to Spinal Tap. You know, it goes up to 11. Haha. It goes up to 11. Get it? So then, what didn't make it in? Well, unlike Android 10, it seems like all the features Google has on their official Android 11 page are here. I'm looking at you, live captions. Which only finally rolled out to Android 10 devices a few months ago. There was a reference to some kind of battery sharing tech similar to Samsung's wireless power share in the beta. It's not here, but maybe we could see that in the Pixel 5. There was also an experimental gesture that allowed you to use a double tap on the back of your phone as a customizable gesture. That's not here. But then, it is in iOS 14, which just came out. So, I don't know how that happened. And you also can't customize the individual colors of quick settings tiles. Although, that ended up looking pretty ugly. So, I'm actually fine with that. So, yeah, not the most exciting release of Android ever. I mean, we're not getting anything revolutionary like iOS 14's widgets. Because we've already had those for 10 years. Excuse me. But there's enough good stuff here to make your phone feel a little more fresh. Speaking of fresh, this segue to our sponsor. It's fresh, yo, you know? If you use Wi-Fi a lot on your smartphone, why pay for a fixed monthly data plan? With Ting, you can stop paying for the data that you're not using. Just take a look at how much you can save at their calculator at linus.ting.com. 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