 Android 11 is here. It's the next version Android and Google's releasing a super early preview of it for developers this year now The changes here are really developer facing There's not a lot of stuff that you're gonna see if you're a user, but Google's making some big promises We've got support for 5g better foldable phone support new improved privacy and storage stuff one thing to keep in mind this is Really a preview for developers only and I mean really like even more so than other years you can only install on a pixel 2 3 3a or 4 or the Excel versions and To install it you need a completely new gear device. Just don't do it guys Just don't trust me on this But if you are developer or you're like us and you happen to have a spare pixel lying around You can install the Android 11 developer preview today, and there's still not a whole lot of stuff again All the big cool exciting changes are probably gonna come at Google I O later this year But there are a couple cool things. So let's dive into them First is bubbles now It's a pretty similar feature to Facebook messengers chat heads feature where you know Puts the head of the person and they're floating over the screen This is a system level thing that in theory any messaging app can use Right now the only app that actually uses it is Google's own messaging app But in theory all your favorite messaging apps should be able to use it and all work together in this single floating bubbly pop-up And then you can get to those messages from anywhere using the features actually really simple you just tap and hold on a messaging notification and There's a send to bubble thing that sends it to a bubble And if you're using the Android 10 betas actually this probably should sound pretty familiar Because it debuted there and then didn't make the final cut. Anyway, it's pure now in Android 11 Hopefully it'll actually ship this time to go along with bubbles There's the new conversation area the notification shade which breaks out your messages from all your other Notifications like Instagram likes and emails and puts them up on top of the notification area The idea here is that it's easier to find and continue the conversations You're having with people because it's a phone and that's what phones are for next up better Application permissions now this sounds boring I know but it's actually taking a page from iOS's book and it's actually super important What Google's letting you do now is now when an app asks if it can use your microphone or your camera or your location data? Instead of having two choices either no or have it always There's now a third option where you can just give it permission that just one time So if you you know want to send a picture using an app But don't want that app to have access to your camera until the end of time. That's what this is for Screen recording, okay. So if you've been using Android, especially the betas We've been burned on this before but it's here now in Android 11 in the beta There's a screen recording UI that lets you just natively record your screen on Android It has a much better user interface this time It looks much nicer and hopefully Google actually, you know ship it this time But again, we'll have to wait and see fingers crossed There's also a couple smaller features dark mode now has automatic Settings you can set it to turn on and off at set times as opposed to having it You know be a manual process the solely gestures on the pixel 4 have a new one where you can Wave your hand over your phone to start and stop your music There's a new touch screen sensitivity option again only on the pixel 4 so far That claims it'll make your touch screen more sensitive and work better when you have a screen protector on Also returning I should say is the ability to pin apps the top of the share sheet Which is something that people have been asking for a long time so now when you're sharing something Instead of just showing you all the apps that you have installed on your phone that you can send it to You can just pin the ones you actually want like, you know messages and email right on top Now this being a developer beta there's a bunch of stuff that we can't really show you yet Either because it's too abstract for us to show on a phone or because it's just not done yet Google's promising 5g improvements like the ability for apps to figure out if your phone really has an Unlimited data connection before it burns through your whole data plan with you know giant 5g data usage There's also better support for scoped storage where Android puts apps in their own little bins where they can't interact as much It's actually pretty similar to iOS now Google introduced this last year with Android 10 But it's making a much bigger push on this this year and it's the sort of thing that will improve security Google's also going to add a feature for if you want to turn that off You'll be able to in some cases again, this is more of a developer thing But your apps will be more secure in things that you might actually notice There's also going to be better support for new types of screens like foldable displays pinhole displays Waterfall displays weird edges. Look Android phones are getting really interesting and really wacky cool new designs And Google's gonna make sure that Android works with all of them, which is great Google's also promising OS level support for shake and stir call authentication Which should make it easier to avoid spam calls It's working on improving low latency video streaming for game streaming services like Google's project stadia It's also promising things like project mainline Which lets Google update parts of the Android OS through the Play Store without having to roll out giant software updates like Android 11 Now again, this is all really really early stuff There's obviously gonna be much bigger features that Google have for us later And some of these features are even already available right now if you have you know Samsung or Motorola phones What's important here is that Google's laying the groundwork for the future of Android When it bakes these features into the OS on a level like this It's setting the bar for developers both software and hardware to build better and better phones for you in the future And that's really exciting Obviously again, this is super early and we'll have lots more on Android 11 in the coming days, weeks and months As Google continues to roll out betas and make more announcements But until then stay tuned to The Verge