With the release of Android Q Beta 5, Google announced that they would be hosting a Reddit AMA, to answer our burning questions about Android Q and almost everything else Android related. That AMA took place this afternoon, with the Android engineering team providing fun and interesting tidbits about, among other things, Android Q and what may be coming with Android R.
With the launch of Android Q Beta 5 earlier this month, Google also announced that it was planning a Reddit AMA for developers. That session with the Android engineering team is taking place next week on r/AndroidDev.
We often praise the update schedule that OnePlus keeps for their devices, and that continues with the release of the third Android Q beta for the OnePlus 6, 6T, 7, and 7 Pro.
At I/O 2019, Google quietly made a series of announcements to improve Bluetooth devices on Android. The company is now sharing a list of which third-party headphones will support Fast Pair’s new “True Wireless features,” Find My Device, and connected device details in Android Q.
Ahead of World Emoji Day tomorrow, Google is sharing the complete set of new emoji launching with Android Q later this year. There are 65 in total, as well as 53 gender-inclusive designs detailed in May.
Android Q is poised to bring a vast swath of smaller quality-of-life changes to our phones. The latest change discovered in a leaked release of Android Q is that Google Translate is being directly integrated with the Recents view, via the Pixel Launcher.
Aside from a slight hiccup on its release, Android Q Beta 5 has been a pretty stable build as we await the final beta in the next few weeks. However, some users have been concerned by notifications that apps are being given unlimited access to location data, but this is a deliberate test by Google ahead of Android Q’s final release.
We are inching ever closer to a full release of Android Q, which is why Beta 5 feels more like fine-tuning than a brand new OS. Sure there are some solid additions — which is why we’re here!
We found a ton of new changes in Android Q Beta 5 yesterday, but there are still changes hiding behind the scenes. Today, we’ve spotted that Google is now using the Settings Panel feature to make it a bit easier to adjust settings on notification channels with Android Q.
Google first added a handy autofill tool for passwords back in Oreo and it hasn’t been changed much in the time since. In the latest Android Q Beta 5 release, Google has slightly tweaked the look of autofill, and there might be some minor performance improvements too.
Leading up to Beta 5’s release this afternoon, one of the biggest changes we’ve been watching in Android Q as a whole has been the new gesture navigation. With Beta 5, it’s clear that gestures have been the biggest focus for Google, and that shows in the end product.
The two largest goals of Android Q are to bring gesture navigation to Android and make dark mode more prominent. One way that early Android Q betas let you make things easier on the eyes was to “force” apps into using dark mode, and now Beta 5 is bringing back the dark mode override.
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Gestures are the clear focus of Android Q Beta 5, and Google Assistant sees a lot of attention in this update as well. One subtle change Android Q makes is to show new instructive prompts when a user starts to open the Assistant either with a gesture or the Pixel’s Active Edge feature.
After four fairly eventful releases, Android Q Beta 5 primarily consists of smaller, iterative changes. One of these, instead of adding a new feature, actually turns an older feature off by default. As of Android Q Beta 5, notification snoozing has a new toggle in the Settings app that defaults to “off.”
The biggest annoyance from Google’s new Gesture Navigation in Android Q is the back gesture. While the motion itself makes sense, it breaks the app navigation drawers that are a staple of the platform. In Android Q Beta 5, “peeking” aims to help fix that problem with navigation drawers, but if you ask me, it’s not worth it.
Google’s latest version of gesture navigation is such a departure from anything that’s been in Android before that it’s actually broken a lot of the functionality in the operating system. One feature that was broken was Screen Pinning, and now after being disabled temporarily, the feature is back in Android Q Beta 5 with Gesture Navigation.
Android’s notification system has been pretty great for a long time now, but in Android Q, Google has been tweaking it even further. With the arrival of Android Q Beta 5, notifications now get a clear “silent” mode which splits them into a second section of the overall notification shade.
Android Q Beta 5 brings us even closer to the official launch of Google’s next mobile operating system in the coming months. We’re enrolling in the Beta Program and sideloading the OTAs right now to explore all the tweaks and near final iterations of the UI and features, so stay tuned to our updating (reverse chronological) list below.
When Android Q’s fully gestural navigation system first debuted, one of the things we didn’t know was how Google intended to have us launch Assistant. That later became clear, and now in Android Q Beta 5, Google is making it more obvious how to launch Assistant with a couple of gesture “handles.”
Android Q Beta 5 just dropped this afternoon. While the update will be heading out over traditional updates to those enrolled in the beta program, here’s how to skip the wait by sideloading the Android Q Beta 5 OTA on a Pixel 3, Pixel 3a, Pixel 2, or Pixel device.
With Android Q Beta 5 today, Google is very close to finalizing the next major version of its mobile operating system. This is the first “release candidate for testing” and makes several updates to gestural navigation.
Over the past couple of years, Google has made a lot of changes to permissions and APIs in Android for a variety of reasons. Back in Android Pie, the company started throttling apps that performed Wi-Fi scanning, but in Android Q, the company is slightly walking back that change.
Google’s Pixel Launcher isn’t too heavy on features, but those it does include are very useful in your daily life. Today, we’re seeing that in Android Q Beta 5, Google will be adding a new gesture to swipe down on the Pixel Launcher homescreen to pull down the notifications tray.
One of the biggest improvements made to the Android Q Beta program is the “fully gestural navigation” method. It takes the half-baked Android Pie semi-gestures and adds a little of what makes the iOS gestures so fluid. But if you plan on using a third-party launcher in future, it appears that you won’t be able to use full gestures on Android Q Beta 5.
