Turning it up to 11: Android 11 for developers

Posted by Stephanie Cuthbertson, Director, Product Management

(AOSP) and officially releasing the newest version of Android. We built Android 11 with a focus on three themes: a People-centric approach to communication, Controls to let users quickly get to and control all of their smart devices, and Privacy to give users more ways to control how data on devices is shared. Read more in our .

People, Controls, Privacy

People

Android 11 is people-centric and expressive, reimagining the way we have conversations on our phones, and building an OS that can recognize and prioritize the most important people in our lives. For developers, Android 11 helps you build deeper conversational and personal interactions into your apps.

• Conversation notifications appear in a dedicated section at the top of the shade, with a people-forward design and conversation specific actions, such as opening the conversation as a bubble, creating a conversation shortcut on the home screen, or setting a reminder.
  
  
• Bubbles - Bubbles help users keep conversations in view and accessible while multitasking on their devices. Messaging and chat apps should use the
  

  Bubbles and people-centric conversations.

  
  

  Controls

  
  
  
  

  
  Android 11 lets users quickly get to and control all of their smart devices in one space. Developers can use new APIs to help users surface smart devices and control media:
  

  
  
  
  
  
  • Device Controls make it faster and easier than ever for users to access and control their connected devices. Now, by simply long pressing the power button, they’re able to bring up device controls instantly, and in one place. Apps can use a new API to appear in the controls. .
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Device controls and media controls.

  
  

  Privacy

  
  
  
  

  
  In Android 11, we’re giving users even more control and transparency over sensitive permissions and working to keep devices more secure through faster updates.
  

  
  

  
  One-time permission - Now users can give an app access to the device microphone, camera, or location, just for one time. The app can request permissions again the next time the app is used.
  
  

  One-time permission dialog in Android 11.

  
  

  
  Background location - Background location now requires additional steps from the user beyond granting a runtime permission. If your app needs background location, the system will ensure that you first ask for foreground location. You can then broaden your access to background location through a that Google Play developers will need to get approval to access background location in their app to prevent misuse. We're giving developers more time to make changes and won't be enforcing the policy for existing apps until 2021.
  

  
  

  
  Permissions auto-reset - if users haven’t used an app for an extended period of time, Android 11 will “auto-reset” all of the runtime permissions associated with the app and notify the user. The app can request the permissions again the next time the app is used. .
  

  
  

  
  Google Play system updates - Launched last year, Google Play system updates help us expedite updates of core OS components to devices in the Android ecosystem. In Android 11, we more than doubled the number of updatable modules, including 12 new modules that will help improve privacy, security, and consistency for users and developers.
  

  
  

  
  BiometricPrompt API - Developers can now use the . We’ll share further updates as the work progresses.
  

  
  

  
  Identity Credential API - This will unlock new use cases such as mobile drivers licences, National ID, and Digital ID. We’re working with various government agencies and industry partners to make sure that Android 11 is ready for digital-first identity experiences.
  

  
  

  
  You can read about all of the Android 11 privacy features , check whether the . To help you build experiences now for 5G, we’ve also added 5G support in the .
  

  
  . You can set a API helps you manage interaction near the edges.
  
  
  

  
  Call screening support - Android 11 helps call-screening apps do more to manage robocalls. Apps can verify an incoming call’s to let users perform actions such as marking a call as spam or adding to contacts.
  

  
  

  Polish and quality

  
  
  
  

  
  OS resiliency - In Android 11 we’ve made the OS more dynamic and resilient as a whole by fine-tuning memory reclaiming processes, such as forcing user-imperceptible restarts of processes based on RSS HWM thresholds. Also, to improve performance and memory, Android 11 adds Binder caching, which optimizes highly used IPC calls to system services by caching data for those that retrieve relatively static data. Binder caching also improves battery life by reducing CPU time.
  

  
  

  
  Synchronized IME transitions - New APIs let you synchronize your app’s content with the IME (input method editor, or on-screen keyboard) and system bars as they animate on and offscreen, making it much easier to create natural, intuitive and jank-free IME transitions. For frame-perfect transitions, a new API to control system UI types like system bars, IME, immersive mode, and others.
  
  now lets you decode and render image sequence animations stored in HEIF files, so you can make use of high-quality assets while minimizing impact on network data and APK size. HEIF image sequences can offer drastic file-size reductions for image sequences let apps decode and encode images (such as JPEG, PNG, WebP) from native code for graphics or post processing, while retaining a smaller APK size since you don’t need to bundle an external library. The native decoder also takes advantage of Android’s process for ongoing platform security updates. See the . Video codecs that support low latency playback return the first frame of the stream as quickly as possible after decoding starts. Apps can use new APIs to low-latency playback for a specific codec.
  

  
  

  
  Variable refresh rate - Apps and games can use a .
  

  
  

  
  Dynamic resource loader - Android 11 includes a new public API to let apps load resources and assets dynamically at runtime. With the .
  

  
  

  Developer friendliness

  
  
  
  

  
  App compatibility tools - We worked to minimize compatibility impacts on your apps by making most Android 11 behavior changes opt-in, so they won’t take effect until you change the apps’ .
  
  

  
  

  
  App exit reasons - When your app exits, it’s important to understand why the app exited and what the state was at the time -- across the many device types, memory configurations, and user scenarios that your app runs in. Android 11 makes this easier with an of the app’s recent exits.
  

  
  

  
  Data access auditing - data access auditing lets you instrument your app to better understand how it accesses user data and from which user flows. For example, it can help you identify any inadvertent access to private data in your own code or within any SDKs you might be using. .
  

  
  

  
  Kotlin nullability annotations - Android 11 adds nullability annotations to more methods in the public API. And, it upgrades a number of existing annotations from warnings to errors. These help you catch nullability issues at build time, rather than at runtime.
  

  
  Here are some of the top .
  
  

• External storage access - Apps can no longer access other apps’ files in external storage. .
  
  
• File descriptor sanitizer - Fdsan is now enabled by default to detect file descriptor handling issues for native code in apps. - these affect your app once it’s targeting the new platform. We recommend assessing these changes as soon as you’ve published the compatible version of your app. For more information on compatibility testing and tools, check out the resources we shared for for technical details.
  
  
  

  Enhance your app with new features and APIs

  
  
  
  

  
  Next, when you're ready, dive into Android 11 and learn about the or enabling .
  
  

• Sharing shortcuts (from Android 10) - Apps that want to receive shared data should use the
  
  
• Synchronized IME transitions - Provide seamless transitions to your users using the new WindowInsets and related APIs. .
  

We recommend these if relevant for your app:

• Conversations - Messaging and communication apps can participate in the conversation experience by providing long-lived .
  
  
• Bubbles - Bubbles are a way to keep conversations in view and accessible while multitasking. Use the to see what you can build.
  
  
• Device controls - If your app supports external smart devices, make sure those devices are accessible from the new Android 11 device controls area. .
  

Read more about all of the Android 11 features at , or you can .

If you're looking for the Android 11 source code, you'll find it repository under the Android 11 branches.

What’s next?

We’ll soon be closing the preview issue tracker and retiring open bugs logged against Developer Preview or Beta builds, but please keep the feedback coming! If you still see an issue that you filed in the preview tracker, just