MKBHD here and Android Q where Q
MKBHD here and Android Q where Q is now out and in beta and this version, not a big visual overhaul, which is kind of what the big letter updates used to be and I miss that a bit but this is definitely full of a lot of smaller updates that people who use Android a lot will appreciate so I got Android Q beta 1 on my pixel it's available on pixels, for now, all the way back to the first gen pixel, but it is a beta and there are some things that are not stable about it. So I wouldn't put this on your main device. But if you want to try it, I'll link it below. So number one. There are some light theming options which is pretty cool. So in the settings, if you go to settings Advanced developer options and then go all the way scroll all the way to the bottom. There's a theming section with a couple of options accent color font and icon shape. So accent colors kind of cool. There are a couple of built-in options. I like the black but there's also a green and a purple and when you change the color you can see reflected in the menus. And the quick settings and toggles and everything.
The system-wide dark theme even more than an Android Pie:
It's not exactly an RGB select your tools not totally custom so you can't pick whatever color you want, but it's more than just the default blue, which is cool. Then you can change the default system font. If you want someone's into that and then the icon shape is also kind of interesting so you can change between the normal Circle that it typically is to teardrop the snorkel or a rounded rectangle and each option when you select it will change the icon shape for the icons that are on your home screen and in your app drawer and in your quick settings, so anywhere there are icons. Basically, I actually don't hate the teardrop or the snorkel which is a square circle, but the rectangle was a little boring for me. But hey the option is there also is so don't know if the dark mode is going to be a thing and Android natively but look what happens when you go into battery saver mode in Android Q when you toggle it you automatically get basically a system-wide dark theme even more than an Android Pie.
So it darkens the quick settings and the app drawer and everything else. Which is, of course, going to help save battery on OLED displays, but also looks pretty cool. Now. This is a battery saver mode. So you probably don't want to leave it on all the time because you lose some features and things and battery saver mode, but the fact that it does all that automatically still is something to keep an eye on the number two, there's even more granular control of app permissions thrilling stuff, but honestly, it is pretty important and kind of overdue. So now with things like location, for example, the first time you open an app that requests your location, you can set it to be on all the time.
Android P or any other previous version:
Never or only when the app is running. So basically like iOS, I'm glad that options here and there's number three new notification Behavior just for swiping just for swipe Direction. So in Android P or any other previous version, you can dismiss notifications by swiping left or right however you want but then to adjust notification settings or mute something you have to do this slightly awkward, like half swipe that was kind of easy to mess up not a huge deal, but they're fixing that with Android Q. So now notifications only dismiss will swipe to the right. It's that more definitive which each direction does also it's much more like iOS again so the number for the new share sheet and this may seem like one of those little tiny things but if you've used Android for more than about a week you already know this is a huge deal. So every version of Android up until now if you want to share something you hit share and it brings up the share sheet with all the places to send it to then after a massive delay.
"It also brings some quick sharing options from apps to use frequently, but that delay is painful and annoying to wait for every single time. And if you're trying to share something real quick, you can hit share and then go to press an app, but then the Quick Share options load up on top of it and it moves what you were about to press. So you press something else by accident".
Its what Android Q is all about:
I swear I do this every single day in Android Q This is cleaned up share shortcuts now all load at once which is a beautiful thing over and over. It's such a small detail, but I cannot wait to never have to deal with the old share sheet ever. The number five last but not least is all the little things just a bunch of little stuff piled together. It's kind of the theme of this update. Its what Android Q is all about. So there's a new and improved files app better-looking more organized just overall better than the last one you get a bit more battery information. So if you enable battery percentage visible, it will also show you when it thinks your battery will run out based on how much time it thinks you have left. So in those Quick Settings, I don't know how much you can trust that but hey if it's a pretty good estimate that's better than nothing.
You can now also undo removing things from the home screen. So it's such a small detail. But if you remove like a big custom widget or something by accident, you can easily just undo it to put it back exactly where it was without having to remember how to set it all up again. No stress lock screen album art. It's now blurred a lot when playing music which looks cleaner, but it's maybe a little too blurred. I feel like I'd prefer somewhere in the middle between these then there's also now behind the scenes support for foldable phones, which are coming sooner than you think and there's also now This super smooth animation for turning off the display and going into that always-on mode now I've never been a person to leave on the always on display, but that animation is pretty slick. Oh also, there's now a built-in native Android screen recorder.
Also speaking of screen recordings screenshots in Android Q:
Barely sorta, I mean it's kind of super buggy. I don't even know if I can say this really exist yet, but I'm just going to show it to you anyway, so if you dive into settings system Advanced and developer options, then you got a scroll until you find something called feature Flags, then in feature Flags scroll until you find one called enable settings screen record long, press and just make sure that is checked. It's not by default. Once this is checked. If you want to screen record you long press the power button then long, press the screenshot button.
And there you go. It gives you the option to start a screen recording and you can also turn on or off audio and show screen touches if you want which is Handy and then start then it's going so you get a notification drop down that says you're recording and you can go about using the phone just like normal while the screen recording goes this is one of my favorite features from IOS. They recently added it. Although with this one now, you can choose to show screen touches and do audio recording at Same time. You can do a whole tutorial with this. That's pretty cool.
So, you know, it's kind of a deal-breaker but that's a small detail like the stop button crashes the UI the pause button also crashes the whole app and the cancel button just straight up doesn't work either. So no matter what I try. I just kind of crashes and everything comes back and the screen recording is still going. So the only way I could get it to stop was to restart the whole phone and then the video would never actually show up in my gallery. So again beta this is beta 1 but I'm hoping really really hoping that this gets built out into its own feature in Android actually having a screen recording built-in would be pretty sweet. Also speaking of screen recordings screenshots in Android Q on the pixel now have a cutout for the notch.
Who knows which phones will ever actually get Android Q most flagships:
built into the screenshot why I don't know there are also corners on the screenshot to like the rounded Corner shows up can't say I saw that coming as a future, but hey, at least now, you know when you get a screenshot from someone that they definitely have a notch on their phone, but that's basically it that's that's mainly what's new with Android Q. There's some good stuff again a lot of smaller things and not a whole lot of visual refresh. I could put these side by side next to each other and you probably wouldn't notice unless I told you but who knows which phones will ever actually get Android Q most flagships coming out now are just getting P now peppermint, but peppermint what I said peppermint, it's Pi. I also don't know what the queue is actually going to stand for. I tried to think of Q desert names.
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