Android 15 – Hidden Gems

Android 15 (aka Vanilla Ice Cream), while not as widely discussed as major feature releases, offers a handful of less-known features that can significantly enhance your user experience. Let’s dive into some of these not so well-known changes that are coming with this release.

1. Camera and Media

• Low Light Boost: Provides an enhanced image preview, so users are better able to frame their low-light pictures and improves scanning QR codes in low light
• In-app camera controls: Provides more control over camera hardware and algorithms.
• HDR headroom control: Offers finer-grained control over HDR behavior.
• Loudness control: Ensures consistent audio loudness across content.
• Virtual MIDI 2.0 devices: Enables virtual MIDI apps to control synthesizer apps.
• More efficient AV1 software decoding: Improves playback performance for low and mid-tier devices.

2. Enhanced Privacy Controls in Android 15

• Screen recording detection: Android 15 adds support for apps to detect that they are being recorded.
• Private space: Private space lets users create a separate space on their device where they can keep sensitive apps away from prying eyes, under an additional layer of authentication. Apps in the private space show up in a separate container in the launcher, and are hidden from the recents view, notifications, settings, and from other apps when the private space is locked.
• Health Connect: Android 15 integrates the latest extensions around Health Connect by Android, a secure and centralized platform to manage and share app-collected health and fitness data. This update adds support for data types across fitness, nutrition, skin temperature, training plans, and more.
• Partial screen sharing: Android 15 supports partial screen sharing so users can share or record just an app window rather than the entire device screen. This feature, first enabled in Android 14 QPR2, includes MediaProjection callbacks that allow your app to customize the partial screen sharing experience.

3. Security

• Integrate Credential Manager with autofill: Starting with Android 15, developers can link specific views like username or password fields with Credential Manager requests, making it easier to provide a tailored user experience during the sign-in process.
• Integrate single tap sign-up and sign-in with biometric prompts: Credential Manager integrates biometric prompts into the credential creation and sign-in processes, eliminating the need for providers to manage biometric prompts.

4. Enhanced Connectivity

• Satellite support: Android 15 continues to extend platform support for satellite connectivity and includes some UI elements to ensure a consistent user experience across the satellite connectivity landscape.
• Smoother NFC experiences: Android 15 is working to make the tap to pay experience more seamless and reliable while continuing to support Android’s robust NFC app ecosystem.
• Wallet role: Android 15 introduces a Wallet role that allows tighter integration with the user’s preferred wallet app.

5. Large screens and form factors with Android 15

• Improved large screen multitasking: Android 15 gives users better ways to multitask on large screen devices.
• APIs Cover screen support: App can declare a property that Android 15 uses to allow your Application or Activity to be presented on the small cover screens of supported flippable devices.

6. User experience and system UI

• Improved Do Not Disturb rules: AutomaticZenRule lets apps customize Attention Management (Do Not Disturb) rules and decide when to activate or deactivate them. Android 15 greatly enhances these rules with the goal of improving the user experience.
• Media projection status bar chip and auto stop: Android 15 QPR1 adds a prominent status bar indicator for media projection (screen sharing, casting, and recording) to ensure users are aware of ongoing media projection and to provide an accessible control for stopping the projection. Also, in-progress media projection is automatically stopped when the device screen is locked.

While these features might not be as prominently advertised as major headline-grabbing changes, they collectively contribute to a more refined and user-friendly Android experience. If you’re an Android enthusiast, it’s worth exploring these hidden gems and seeing how they can enhance your daily interactions with your device.

Source: Google Developers