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Introduction
We were intrigued at the possibility, so we decided to take the latest Android Q beta for a spin and tell you what to expect later this year when it officially drops on Pixels - and much later than that for most other Android handsets that are getting this update.
Q for Quality? It's not a dessert name, and that would mess with Google's established naming convention, but with the shortage of options starting with the letter Q, perhaps it should make an exception? And it would fit well with the 10 number, which feels like it should warrant a special anniversary party of some sort. We obviously wouldn't complain if quality was indeed the main driving force behind Google's development of the next version of its mobile OS.
Given the lack of many huge new user-facing features, it would seem the perfect time to focus on precisely that.
As you may know, this isn't the first Android Q beta, it's the third, but it's the one released during Google's annual developer conference, I/O. And in past years the company has gotten us used to announcing most of the user-facing new features in the upcoming Android version at I/O, with some if not most of those then showing up in that beta build. That's why we waited for this particular beta to be out and decided to make our review about it and not its two predecessors.
It's also a perfect time to review the upcoming OS because from this point on we don't expect big new changes to come, only bug fixes and improvements in polish and overall performance.
So if you want to learn what's what regarding Android Q and whether it's worth looking forward to, hop on our review train and make yourself comfortable - we'll dive into what's new and already available, what's coming in the future, what's different between the Android Q beta on a Pixel 3 and other devices, and which bugs are present.
New gesture navigation
One of the biggest new features packed into the latest Android Q beta is the revamped navigation system. Last year with Pie, Google introduced its first take, which could really only be described as a half-baked attempt, at best. Gesture navigation is anything but new in the mobile world. Many Android device makers have already been shipping their own interpretations in the past couple of years, following Apple's lead. But one of the main benefits of using gestures over navigation buttons is the added usable screen real estate. Except Google's version in Pie didn't actually get rid of the navigation bar, which makes that point moot.
Better luck this time? Well, it's complicated. The new system, called "Fully gestural navigation" in Settings, is an improvement, although it's still far from fully baked. Then again, this is a beta OS release we're testing, so there's still time for its issues to be fixed.
System navigation options
Here's what you get: swipe up from the bottom to go home, swipe up and pause to get the multitasking menu. If you want to reach the app drawer, swipe up again after you've paused. In the Recents view the Google search bar shows up at the bottom with five suggested apps under it, if you move this panel up you'll get the full drawer. To go back at any point, you swipe from either the left or right edge of the screen.
To quickly switch between apps, either swipe up then right (or left), or simply swipe right or left on the line that shows up at the bottom of the screen at all times once you enable the new gesture navigation system.
Here's the (perhaps rather obvious) problem: right now if you enable this system, you will no longer be able to swipe from the left edge of the screen to bring to front an app's hamburger menu-enabled navigation drawer. You can still tap on the hamburger itself, of course, but since most people are right handed and that is in the hardest-to-reach place on a screen for someone holding and operating a phone with the right hand, that's not ideal.
It gets worse: Google's plan for fixing this is letting app developers set 'exclusion zones' for the new system, for areas in which the app's own navigation might conflict with the Back gesture. So if an app has a slide-out navigation drawer, its developer can override the Back gesture on the left side (where the drawer resides) or just parts of it. RIP consistency, then - not that Android's 'Back' action has ever been consistent, but still. Think about it: different apps may choose different behaviors, so the same gesture would yield different results - which aren't obvious from the get-go. You'll basically have to swipe and see what happens. Hope for the best.
Don't get us wrong, we're big fans of the new Back gesture. Since this is probably the most used action when navigating the OS, being able to swipe from anywhere on the right or left edge of the screen inwards to trigger it is a godsend, and leads to a drastic reduction in finger gymnastics compared to other gesture systems that use swiping from the bottom to go back, for example. But this creates a problem given the existence of app navigation drawers - and it was Google that popularized those in the first place, many years ago.
So why not ape Xiaomi's gesture navigation system completely, and trigger the Back action only when the swipe originates in the lower two thirds of the left edge of the screen, leaving the top third to trigger the opening of the navigation drawer? Intuitively this makes as much sense as anything could when we're talking about gesture navigation since the hamburger icon is in the top part of an app's UI anyway. Or, if for some reason this isn't good enough, why didn't Google just restrict the Back action to swipes from the right edge, system-wide?
We don't know, and all we can do is hope that this gets fixed before Android Q is released to the general public. A smaller nitpick we have is that while the huge navigation bar of old is indeed gone, there's still a tiny version of it, with a big pill/line-shaped element in the middle, sitting pretty at the bottom of the screen. This reminds us of Apple's similar UI cue to get people to realize they're supposed to use gestures, but we're not convinced anyone has ever seen that and went "oh, yeah, I totally need to swipe from there to go somewhere". Not to mention that Back isn't a gesture that's initiated from that space.
Moving on, if you're on a home screen swiping up from the bottom will bring up the app drawer, but if you pause you get the multitasking menu. That's fine in theory, but the animations here need some work, it just looks janky when the horizontally scrolling the Recents list takes over from the vertically scrolling app drawer.
The transition between the app drawer and Recents is wonky
If you're wondering how you can quickly bring up Google Assistant since there's no more Home key to long press, you can swipe diagonally from the bottom left or right corner and it will show up. Like a lot of other things about such a gesture navigation system, this has zero discoverability, so it's good that on six out of eight Pixel models there's also the option of squeezing the frame to accomplish the same thing.
Interestingly, after last year's Pixels came with only the gesture navigation system and no three-button navigation option, in this Android Q beta you have three options for how to go about the UI: the new gestures, the old gestures (why?), as well as the fixed navigation bar with Home, Back, and Recents buttons. If that sounds messier than choice-y, it is. Let's hope it will become less so by the time Q has a name.
Notifications
The running joke that it can't be a new Android version without a change in notifications still holds true in 2019. Google has once again tinkered with notifications, and while it hasn't done so as much as in some previous versions, the changes are still pretty significant.
First off, Smart Reply is now built into the notification system, and as such it will work for any messaging app you have installed. What's more, it does its magic of suggesting a reply for you in the app's notification without requiring an Internet connection - it's all powered by on-device machine learning. Oh, and Smart Reply now also suggests actions you may want to take based on the contents of a message, not just replies - so if you receive an address, you'll get a suggestion for viewing that in Maps. Tap the suggestion in the notification, and you're instantly shown it in Maps - without the need to tap the notification first to get to the messaging app and then tap the address. The amount of time this will save you can quickly add up.
When you swipe left on a notification you get a new menu that lets you select whether that app's specific notification channel that triggered that notification serves you interruptive or gentle notifications. The former will make a sound and show in the notification drawer, status bar, and on the lock screen, while the latter are silent and appear only in the shade. You can also invert the swiping direction - to trigger the notification menu when you swipe right instead of left, in which case swiping left will dismiss a notification.
Notifications can be Interruptive or Gentle
You can change whether notifications from an app are interruptive or gentle on a per-channel basis, but this new setting means snoozing notifications is no longer possible. A new "Notification assistant" will by default automatically prioritize notifications for you, so manual adjustments will only be needed where it goes wrong.
Google packs its own Notification Assistant in Q, but since the menu in Settings looks strikingly similar to the one that lets you pick which Autofill service to use, we're guessing Google may have intended to let third-party developers come up with their versions. However, for now, it's removed the associated API so we'll have to see if support for that comes back in later betas or not. It wouldn't be shocking if Google has had second thoughts about letting third-party apps have this much control over your notifications.
The notification assistant can read all notifications, including personal info such as contact names and the contents of the messages you receive. It is also able to modify or dismiss notifications or trigger any action buttons they may contain, as well as turn Do Not Disturb mode on or off and modify its settings. If Google doesn't change its mind again and its own Notification Assistant will be your only choice in Q, we're hoping it changes its Settings menu, as right now it looks like it was designed to be able to house more than one option.
The new Notifications menu in Settings
Note: the "Bubbles" option that you may have spotted in the screenshots above is a new feature, but Google has already announced that it's not intended for mainstream users yet. In fact, in the final release of Q it will be relegated to the Developer options menu. This is why we haven't discussed it here; we expect it to go live in Android R next year. In short, you can think of it like Facebook Messenger's Chat Heads, but for the entire OS.
Dark theme
After years of cries from lovers of all things black and dark all across the globe, Google finally caved. Android Q has a fully baked, fully functional, manually selectable dark theme. No more need to pick a dark wallpaper to invoke it, just go to Settings > Display > Theme and enable it.
Changing theme in Display Settings
Although this will probably end up being the most celebrated new feature in Android Q (which tells you something about how many exciting consumer-facing things this release is coming with), there isn't a lot to say about it. It exists. It's truly black, not dark gray or dark blue, so on AMOLED screens, it should aid, at least a little bit, in battery life. Everything system-related turns dark - the Settings, the Quick Settings, the Notifications, the Google Discover feed that you reach by swiping right when you're on the leftmost home screen, it's a color inversion bonanza, this. What's more, in the future, expect the built-in apps to all turn black once you enable the theme, and third-party developers can support this too. So it seems like we can look forward to a truly 'dark' future for stock Android (but in a good way, of course).
The new Dark theme
If you're impatient, Google has helpfully built in a trick to force apps to dark mode, even if they don't yet support it. You'll need to first enable the hidden Developer options menu for this, which you do by going to Settings > About phone and by tapping the Build number line a few times quickly, then confirming your PIN or password. Then head over to Settings > System > Advanced > Developer options, scroll way down, and toggle Override force-dark to be on. While you're there, please do not play with Developer options you don't understand, doing that might result in a need to reset your device.
"Override force-dark" in Developer options
The forcing of dark mode seems to work reasonably well from what we've experienced, although in most apps doesn't give you true black, just dark grey. And it's not all smooth sailing - for example, in a lot of apps (Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Keep among them) the interface does turn dark, but while you're in the app, the status bar shows black icons on a dark grey background. Such issues are probably why forcing the dark theme is a setting hidden in Developer options.
Status bar color issues in some apps
Settings reshuffled
There's no joke about this one (or maybe there is, and we just haven't heard it?), but every year, with every new Android version, Google changes something about Settings. It's just compulsive like that.
Revamped Settings
With Android Q we get a new top-level Settings entry for Privacy because Google keeps being accused it's not focusing on that enough. So now it made it a separate item in Settings, what more could you want?
Kidding aside, this menu item incorporates the new Permission manager, which groups apps by the permissions they are granted.
Other privacy-related things that used to be housed elsewhere in Settings have thankfully been added here too, such as everything about Google's Autofill service, links to your location history, and Activity controls - where you choose the activities and info that Google can save. The Google Ads settings have moved here too, and the toggle for sending usage and diagnostic data from your phone to its servers is the last in the list.
The Privacy menu and Permission manager
Location and Security are once again individual top-level entries in Settings, and there has been a change in the way you grant apps permission to access your location. Previously, this was a simple yes/no switch, but now you get another option - letting an app know your whereabouts only while you're actively using it. Additionally, when apps use your location in the background, you'll get a system notification (this was already a feature in many OEM launchers).
New Location and Security menus
Speaking of permissions, if you make an app the default for something (browser, email client, messaging app, the likes), it will automatically be granted permissions based on what it is the default for. This happens through a new system of the OS giving specific apps "roles", and the list of those, for now, comprises browser, dialer, SMS app, launcher, music app, gallery app, and your emergency information handler.
So, when you set something as your default phone dialer, it will automatically be granted permissions to handle calls as well as send SMS messages - no more of those pesky permission request pop-ups. Similarly, the default SMS app can read and send SMS messages and access your contacts. The default music app has control over files in the Music folder, while the default Gallery is granted permission to oversee the Photos & Videos media folder. You get the idea. It's a neat little user experience improvement, this, since it's rather apparent that if you want an app to be your default dialer you trust it enough to grant it permission to make and receive phone calls.
Share menu
Probably the most painfully slow part of Android so far has been the Share menu. And that's a huge shame given how useful it is - nevermind the fact that it introduced the world to the concept of sharing things from one app into another way before Apple ever had something similar in iOS. For years it used to be a key usability differentiator between Android and iOS, but all this time it's been slow and inconsistent.
In Android Q, Google is finally working on fixing the Share menu, by switching from a pull to push methodology - so the app shortcuts are ready when you engage the menu, and don't all have to load after you tap the Share icon, as before.
If you're wondering whether Google has pulled it off - yes, the new menu is significantly faster than the old one in Pie. We still feel like there's room for improvement, speed-wise, but a few more Q betas are coming so there's still time for that to happen. There's also a functional difference between the new Share menu and the old one: you now get 8 Direct share targets at the top instead of 4 as it was before.
To give you an example of what these are, they should show up and allow you to share something not just with an app, but a specific recipient. So if you want to send an image to Sally on WhatsApp, the Direct share part of the menu will (hopefully) surface her name (and this should happen if you message each other a lot) and then you're saving a tap by not first choosing WhatsApp as a share target.
Share menu is faster
Direct share was limited to 4 targets before because of how slow it was to load, but now when you swipe up the Share menu, you'll see 8 targets. When it first comes up, it will still only show you 4, but the main problem with the Direct share idea has always been the fact that it selected which recipients to show you seemingly at random. Or, in our case seen in the screenshots above, not displaying any targets at all. Hopefully, it will stop doing either of these things by the time Android Q comes out of beta.
Finally, in Share menu news, you can no longer pin apps to the top. This used to be a workaround a lot of people employed in older Android versions because every time you'd want to share something the menu would pick a different placement for the same app - and this lead to a lot of hunting, especially if you usually share things to only a few apps. For whatever reason, pinning is no longer possible. Does the faster speed of the new Share menu alleviate that issue somewhat? Sure, but it is odd to see this feature cut out anyway. Perhaps it just wasn't working well with the new push system, and Google will re-add it in a future beta.
Note that all of this (rather obviously) only applies to the native Android Share menu. A lot of apps, even some made by Google (YouTube, Maps, News, Photos), have their own custom share sheets, and maybe those need to go away now that the default one is finally reaching a usable speed?
Other new stuff
You can now easily share the Wi-Fi password to a network from Settings. You get a barcode to show other people, which they can scan to connect, and below it you even have the Wi-Fi password in good 'ol plain text if the barcode isn't working for some reason. Because of how sensitive this information is, accessing the Wi-Fi network sharing menu requires authentication with your fingerprint or password.
New Wi-Fi menu with easy barcode sharing of networks
You can customize vibration strength separately for calls, notifications, and screen touches if you go to Settings > Accessibility > Vibration. Some Android OEMs have been offering something similar for ages; and it's good to see this finally added by Google too. Still no control over how your phone vibrates, though. Maybe that will be a feature for Android R.
Custom vibration settings
If you use Battery Saver, note that you can now choose whether it will automatically turn itself off when the phone recharges back to 90% of charge, or stay on until you turn it off manually. You can also set up a routine, having it turn on automatically based on how you use your phone (if the battery is likely to be depleted before your next typical charge), or based on a specific percentage (which you can adjust from 5% to 75%).
Battery menu with new Battery saver options
When you aren't connected to anything, and Wi-Fi networks are available around you, you may see a card with three suggestions at the top of the Settings UI. In previous Android versions, you'd sometimes see tips here, and this is an expansion upon that feature set. If you have Wi-Fi off for a while, you could see a reminder to turn it back on, and there's also a card with info about connected Bluetooth devices which may show up in the same place. The latter only appears when you are connected to a device. Unlike with Wi-Fi, there's no toggle to turn on or off Bluetooth.
Your Google account photo now shows up in Settings, in the top right inside the search bar (with the search icon being symmetrically on its other side).
A new Audio balance slider is found in the Accessibility settings letting you adjust the left/right audio channel balance when you have stereo audio source.
If you use a PIN to lock your screen, the previous check mark icon in the bottom right of the keypad is now an Enter key.
There's an Emergency button in the power menu (that shows up when you long press the power button), which, when engaged, shows you a huge keypad (supposedly to quickly call emergency services) as well as a link to the Emergency information you saved in Settings - this should be useful for emergency responders.
Enter key on lock screen, Emergency button in Power menu
The uptime of your handset since the last shutdown/reboot is now proudly displayed in Settings > About phone.
Also the last three Bluetooth devices you connected to now show up directly in the Connected devices Settings section, you no longer have to tap on "Previously connected devices" unless you want to see more than three. Search results in Settings can have toggles and sliders, so you can quickly adjust things like the brightness level or whether adaptive brightness is on.
Uptime counter, search results with toggles
Android Q blocks clipboard access to apps that aren't in the foreground or aren't the default input method. The privacy advantage here is clear since a lot of people copy and paste sensitive information like passwords and credit card numbers, but this unfortunately also means that clipboard manager apps no longer work.
If you enable showing the battery percentage in the status bar when you pull down the Quick Settings shade you'll see an estimate of how much longer your device will last based on your current usage.
Battery endurance estimate
Media notifications gain a seekable progress bar which lets you seek around without having to open the corresponding app.
Dark theme
After years of cries from lovers of all things black and dark all across the globe, Google finally caved. Android Q has a fully baked, fully functional, manually selectable dark theme. No more need to pick a dark wallpaper to invoke it, just go to Settings > Display > Theme and enable it.
Changing theme in Display Settings
Although this will probably end up being the most celebrated new feature in Android Q (which tells you something about how many exciting consumer-facing things this release is coming with), there isn't a lot to say about it. It exists. It's truly black, not dark gray or dark blue, so on AMOLED screens, it should aid, at least a little bit, in battery life. Everything system-related turns dark - the Settings, the Quick Settings, the Notifications, the Google Discover feed that you reach by swiping right when you're on the leftmost home screen, it's a color inversion bonanza, this. What's more, in the future, expect the built-in apps to all turn black once you enable the theme, and third-party developers can support this too. So it seems like we can look forward to a truly 'dark' future for stock Android (but in a good way, of course).
The new Dark theme
If you're impatient, Google has helpfully built in a trick to force apps to dark mode, even if they don't yet support it. You'll need to first enable the hidden Developer options menu for this, which you do by going to Settings > About phone and by tapping the Build number line a few times quickly, then confirming your PIN or password. Then head over to Settings > System > Advanced > Developer options, scroll way down, and toggle Override force-dark to be on. While you're there, please do not play with Developer options you don't understand, doing that might result in a need to reset your device.
"Override force-dark" in Developer options
The forcing of dark mode seems to work reasonably well from what we've experienced, although in most apps doesn't give you real black, just dark grey. And it's not all smooth sailing - for example, in a lot of apps (Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Keep among them) the interface does turn dark, but while you're in the app, the status bar shows black icons on a dark grey background. Such issues are probably why forcing the dark theme is a setting hidden in Developer options.
Status bar color issues in some apps
Settings reshuffled
There's no joke about this one (or maybe there is, and we just haven't heard it?), but every year, with every new Android version, Google changes something about Settings. It's just compulsive like that.
Revamped Settings
With Android Q we get a new top-level Settings entry for Privacy because Google keeps being accused it's not focusing on that enough. So now it made it a separate item in Settings, what more could you want?
Kidding aside, this menu item incorporates the new Permission manager, which groups apps by the permissions they are granted.
Other privacy-related things that used to be housed elsewhere in Settings have thankfully been added here too, such as everything about Google's Autofill service, links to your location history, and Activity controls - where you choose the activities and info that Google can save. The Google Ads settings have moved here too, and the toggle for sending usage and diagnostic data from your phone to its servers is the last in the list.
The Privacy menu and Permission manager
Location and Security are once again individual top-level entries in Settings, and there has been a change in the way you grant apps permission to access your location. Previously, this was a simple yes/no switch, but now you get another option - letting an app know your whereabouts only while you're actively using it. Additionally, when apps use your location in the background, you'll get a system notification (this was already a feature in many OEM launchers).
New Location and Security menus
Speaking of permissions, if you make an app the default for something (browser, email client, messaging app, the likes), it will automatically be granted permissions based on what it is the default for. This happens through a new system of the OS giving specific apps "roles", and the list of those, for now, comprises browser, dialer, SMS app, launcher, music app, gallery app, and your emergency information handler.
So, when you set something as your default phone dialer, it will automatically be granted permissions to handle calls as well as send SMS messages - no more of those pesky permission request pop-ups. Similarly, the default SMS app can read and send SMS messages and access your contacts. The default music app has control over files in the Music folder, while the default Gallery is granted permission to oversee the Photos & Videos media folder. You get the idea. It's a neat little user experience improvement, this, since it's rather apparent that if you want an app to be your default dialer you trust it enough to grant it permission to make and receive phone calls.
Share menu
Probably the most painfully slow part of Android so far has been the Share menu. And that's a huge shame given how useful it is - nevermind the fact that it introduced the world to the concept of sharing things from one app into another way before Apple ever had something similar in iOS. For years it used to be a key usability differentiator between Android and iOS, but all this time it's been slow and inconsistent.
In Android Q, Google is finally working on fixing the Share menu, by switching from a pull to push methodology - so the app shortcuts are ready when you engage the menu, and don't all have to load after you tap the Share icon, as before.
If you're wondering whether Google has pulled it off - yes, the new menu is significantly faster than the old one in Pie. We still feel like there's room for improvement, speed-wise, but a few more Q betas are coming so there's still time for that to happen. There's also a functional difference between the new Share menu and the old one: you now get 8 Direct share targets at the top instead of 4 as it was before.
To give you an example of what these are, they should show up and allow you to share something not just with an app, but a specific recipient. So if you want to send an image to Sally on WhatsApp, the Direct share part of the menu will (hopefully) surface her name (and this should happen if you message each other a lot) and then you're saving a tap by not first choosing WhatsApp as a share target.
Share menu is faster
Direct share was limited to 4 targets before because of how slow it was to load, but now when you swipe up the Share menu, you'll see 8 targets. When it first comes up, it will still only show you 4, but the main problem with the Direct share idea has always been the fact that it selected which recipients to show you seemingly at random. Or, in our case seen in the screenshots above, not displaying any targets at all. Hopefully, it will stop doing either of these things by the time Android Q comes out of beta.
Finally, in Share menu news, you can no longer pin apps to the top. This used to be a workaround a lot of people employed in older Android versions because every time you'd want to share something the menu would pick a different placement for the same app - and this lead to a lot of hunting, especially if you usually share things to only a few apps. For whatever reason, pinning is no longer possible. Does the faster speed of the new Share menu alleviate that issue somewhat? Sure, but it is odd to see this feature cut out anyway. Perhaps it just wasn't working well with the new push system, and Google will re-add it in a future beta.
Note that all of this (rather obviously) only applies to the native Android Share menu. A lot of apps, even some made by Google (YouTube, Maps, News, Photos), have their own custom share sheets, and maybe those need to go away now that the default one is finally reaching a usable speed?
Other new stuff
You can now easily share the Wi-Fi password to a network from Settings. You get a barcode to show other people, which they can scan to connect, and below it, you even have the Wi-Fi password in good 'ol plain text if the barcode isn't working for some reason. Because of how sensitive this information is, accessing the Wi-Fi network sharing menu requires authentication with your fingerprint or password.
New Wi-Fi menu with easy barcode sharing of networks
You can customize vibration strength separately for calls, notifications, and screen touches if you go to Settings > Accessibility > Vibration. Some Android OEMs have been offering something similar for ages; and it's good to see this finally added by Google too. Still no control over how your phone vibrates, though. Maybe that will be a feature for Android R.
Custom vibration settings
If you use Battery Saver, note that you can now choose whether it will automatically turn itself off when the phone recharges back to 90% of charge, or stay on until you turn it off manually. You can also set up a routine, having it turn on automatically based on how you use your phone (if the battery is likely to be depleted before your next typical charge), or based on a percentage value (which you can adjust from 5% to 75%).
Battery menu with new Battery saver options
When you aren't connected to anything, and Wi-Fi networks are available around you, you may see a card with three suggestions at the top of the Settings UI. In previous Android versions, you'd sometimes see tips here, and this is an expansion upon that feature set. If you have Wi-Fi off for a while, you could see a reminder to turn it back on, and there's also a card with info about connected Bluetooth devices which may show up in the same place. The latter only appears when you are connected to a device. Unlike with Wi-Fi, there's no toggle to turn on or off Bluetooth.
Your Google account photo now shows up in Settings, in the top right inside the search bar (with the search icon being symmetrically on its other side).
A new Audio balance slider is found in the Accessibility settings letting you adjust the left/right audio channel balance when you have stereo audio source.
If you use a PIN to lock your screen, the previous check mark icon in the bottom right of the keypad is now an Enter key.
There's an Emergency button in the power menu (that shows up when you long press the power button), which, when engaged, shows you a huge keypad (supposedly to quickly call emergency services) as well as a link to the Emergency information you saved in Settings - this should be useful for emergency responders.
Enter key on lock screen, Emergency button in Power menu
The uptime of your handset since the last shutdown/reboot is now proudly displayed in Settings > About phone.
Also the last three Bluetooth devices you connected to now show up directly in the Connected devices Settings section, you no longer have to tap on "Previously connected devices" unless you want to see more than three. Search results in Settings can have toggles and sliders, so you can quickly adjust things like the brightness level or whether adaptive brightness is on.
Uptime counter, search results with toggles
Android Q blocks clipboard access to apps that aren't in the foreground or aren't the default input method. The privacy advantage here is clear since a lot of people copy and paste sensitive information like passwords and credit card numbers, but this unfortunately also means that clipboard manager apps no longer work.
If you enable showing the battery percentage in the status bar when you pull down the Quick Settings shade you'll see an estimate of how much longer your device will last based on your current usage.
Battery endurance estimate
Media notifications gain a seekable progress bar which lets you seek around without having to open the corresponding app.
On-device Google Assistant
The Google Assistant made its debut on the original Pixel phones in 2016, and since then it's grown into the best virtual assistant there is. On its third anniversary, a massive update is coming, but we have to warn you, Google said this is launching on the Pixel 4 phones first. So like the original rollout of the Assistant, it might be limited to the upcoming Pixels for a while, until the company is ready for a rollout across all Android devices.
The big news is that the Assistant will be fully contained on your phone, so it will no longer send your queries to the Google servers to interpret your speech. The company has managed to develop completely new speech recognition and language understanding models that don't need the cloud to function anymore because they take up as little as half a gigabyte of space. Hence, these will live on your handset, replacing the 100GB models that the company has so far been using in the cloud.
This means the new Assistant will process requests with near-zero latency since there's no waiting around for the round-trip the data makes to the cloud and back. So its answers should feel much more like they are part of a natural conversation - Google says it will reply up to ten times faster than before. And of course, since it's all on-device, it will understand your query even when there's no internet connection - although the lack of connectivity will still prevent it from showing you results on the web.
Bluetooth settings revamp, Find My Accessories
In an un-streamed talk at its developer conference, Google detailed a few Bluetooth-related improvements coming to Android Q, but which aren't part of the current beta release. The company is going to cater more to truly wireless earbuds, which makes sense considering how popular these are becoming.
When you open or close their charging case, you'll get a notification showing the remaining battery life for each earbud, as well as the case itself. The Bluetooth settings page will be redesigned too and will show you the same three-tier battery stats if you have truly wireless earbuds connected. On the same page you'll be able to manage Assistant and notification settings for your accessories, change touch controls, control audio tuning, and toggle in-ear detection on and off.
Additionally, if you have an accessory that is Fast Pair enabled, you can locate it on a map which will show you where it was when it last disconnected. This will take you to the Find My Device app, now expanded to also cover headphones. Once you're there, you can see the connection quality, the last time of use, and quickly unpair an accessory if you need to.
Fast Pair is part of Google Play Services and works with all Android 6.0+ devices connected to accessories with the A2DP or HFP profiles. It's meant to replicate Apple's 'magic' fast pairing functionality that it has built into its own brand and Beats headphones to make pairing a less involved process than usual. If you have Fast Pair enabled headphones and use Android, you'll get a Tap to Pair notification on your phone once you turn them on.
Google is working on supporting many more devices through Fast Pair by the end of the year. More Bluetooth profiles should be added, as well as support for Bluetooth Low Energy devices such as smartwatches.
Live Caption
Live Caption was announced on stage at Google I/O, and its name is very descriptive. Thanks to the new on-device machine learning capability and audio playback capture API, you'll get support for live captions of any media right on your phone, with no internet connection required.
It will automatically caption media playing on your device - videos, podcasts, audio messages, you name it - across any app. It even works with stuff you record yourself. As soon as speech is detected, captions will just automagically appear. The captions and audio never leave your phone. This is going to be helpful for the deaf and hard of hearing people, 466 million across the world, according to Google's numbers. But it will also help those who watch video without sound out of privacy reasons.
Digital Wellbeing: Focus Mode and upgrades to Family Link
Last year Google launched its Digital Wellbeing suite, that gets its own top-level placement in Settings but rather confusingly isn't updated at the same time as Android. Its beta got launched after Pie dropped, and was opt-in for Pixels. This year Digital Wellbeing will receive a new Focus Mode, which will be available to Pixels but also other Android handsets running Android 9 Pie or Q.
Focus Mode's name is pretty self-explanatory. Once you activate it, the apps you have pre-selected as being distracting will no longer be able to show you notifications - until you decide to come out of Focus Mode, of course.
Google's Family Link set of parental controls will be accessible through Settings on every handset that runs Q and has the Digital Wellbeing suite, and these two will share a top-level Settings slot because they're philosophically connected.
The company is also expanding its parental controls to add top requested features such as giving your kids bonus time for phone usage before bed, and the ability to set app-specific time limits for them.
A further improvement to the Digital Wellbeing suite, coming with updates to both itself and the default Pixel Launcher, means you'll be able to quickly 'pause' apps by long-tapping their icons on a home screen. An additional option will show up when you do that, and when you hit the hourglass that app will be paused for the remainder of the day, so you won't be able to use it until the clock strikes midnight. This complements Digital Wellbeing's ability to add app timers per day, so you are only allowed to use a specific app for whatever amount of time you set. The point of all this is to help with distractions, but obviously, whether you use app timers or app pausing is entirely up to you. It will be interesting to see if third-party launchers will follow the Pixel Launcher's lead and support quick app pausing too.
A key thing to note here is that Digital Wellbeing doesn't seem to be part of the core Android OS Google offers to third-party manufacturers, so whether it will ever make it to your particular smartphone remains to be seen. So far, some companies that are known for offering a pretty stock-like Android experience, like OnePlus, haven't adopted Google's Digital Wellbeing, instead of being inspired to develop their own takes on the concept (Zen Mode, anyone?). Since Google is being very vague about it, we can't even infer whether this is meant as an exclusive for Pixels, but perhaps time will tell.
What’s in an (Android) name?
Clearly not a feature per se, this - or is it? Since Android 1.5 Cupcake Google's use of dessert names for every new big release of its mobile OS has become part of mobile world folklore, with anxious anticipation for every year's announcement of what the new one is. This time around the company's choices are severely limited, however. Quick: think of a dessert that starts with the letter Q! No, quiche is not a dessert.
So while Google works on cracking this tough nut, may we suggest Android 10 Queen of Puddings? Android 10 Queijadinha? Android 10 Qurabiya? Android 10 Quindim? Most of those will be pretty interesting to hear said out loud on a stage somewhere.
Final note here: "Android 10" sounds very big and anniversary and all that, but the actual release that will be called that doesn't really stand out very much. There are many improvements, for sure, as well as some new features added, but clearly, this is an iterative year for Google's mobile software efforts, and not one that "changes everything," as Apple would say.
Foldable phones, 5G
Since foldable smartphones are now a thing, Android Q is also introducing support for these new and exciting form factors. It's designed to enable seamless switching between an inner and an outer display, better multitasking on larger screens, and adapting to different screen dimensions.
Android Q also has 5G support built-in, not that that was a prerequisite for us to see 5G capable smartphones - these already exist and they all run Pie. Yet Q will offer developers tools to build apps with faster connectivity use cases in mind, with enhanced AR and gaming experiences.
Modular security updates
Like clockwork, not a year goes by and not one Google I/O conference passes without the company triumphantly announcing that it's improving the dire update situation in the Android world. Spoiler alert: while some of its past initiatives in this domain have helped somewhat, the improvements so far have been extremely small. Maybe this time it will be different?
Don't hold your breath. So now that we got modular Android OS feature updates out of the way (those launched with Pie and someone should tell OEMs about them, perhaps), the next bullet point is obviously security patches. Like with all updates, some third party manufacturers are better at pushing these out in a timely manner than others, but seeing a security patch per month from all OEMs is still a pipe dream.
Enter Project Mainline. This is supposed to let Google (with an OEMs permission, and this is important to keep in mind) update some parts of the underlying OS in the background, like an app update. The updates will come through Google Play, actually, and they will patch some core OS components.
So, in theory, Google could be pushing these to your non-Google phone and it'll get more secure without you having to wait for a full-blown system update from its manufacturer. This should "accelerate" the delivery of security fixes, privacy enhancements, and consistency improvements across the ecosystem, though by how much remains to be seen.
According to Google, last year's Project Treble resulted in a 2.5x acceleration in the adoption rate of Pie compared to Oreo, but that's Misleading Phrasing 101 because the timely update situation used to be horrendous and now it's graduated to just dire.
With Mainline, Google says it will be able to deliver fast fixes for critical security bugs, like those relating to media components, which have been modularized (and media-related bugs accounted for 40% recently patched Android vulnerabilities).
The company is also going to improve its permissions systems as it needs to be in perfect order to better safeguard your data, as well as quickly address issues affecting system stability, compatibility, and developer consistency.
This all sounds fine and dandy, but given Google and Android's history around such highly touted improvements to updates, we're still skeptical. Also note that while such updates will happen in the background, you'll still need to reboot your device to see the new improvements after each one.
Encryption for everyone
Every device that will launch running Android Q will be required to encrypt user data storage up to the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) - phones, tablets, TVs, automotive devices even. So far, low-end phones have not had encryption turned on because of the performance cost that their processors simply couldn't handle given the lack of support for hardware acceleration of encryption.
Google now has a solution: it's called Adiantum and it's a new encryption method that runs about five times faster on an old Cortex-A7 CPU than a standard AES compliant method. It can run efficiently without specialized hardware, on anything from a smartwatch to an internet-connected medical device. This should provide a huge security boost to users of cheap smartphones across the world, starting at whatever point affordable low-end handsets running Android Q will appear on the market.
Storage encryption is only half of the picture, in Android Q Google is also enabling support for TLS 1.3 by default. This is a major revision of the TLS cryptographic protocol for network communications security, and it's faster, more secure, and more private.
The release is not without its bugs
It's a beta, so unsurprisingly things aren't well polished at this point, especially since with its release schedule Google still has plenty of time to iron out the kinks. Expect a few more betas, and then a final release at some point in August, if Google reprises its timeline from the past couple of years.
We haven't found any show-stopping bugs on a Pixel 3 we've been using for this beta release review, but the same can't be said about other devices.
The beta is pretty much unusable on an original Pixel XL in this state, with the Play Store continuously crashing and sometimes taking the whole UI with it. And overall, Android Q on the OG Pixel is much slower than Pie, which is saying something - and not something good for how Google's handled keeping its old handsets up and running.
Multiple seconds can sometimes pass between an action being initiated and it actually happening, and a bunch of Settings persistantly refused to be changed. So we stuck with only the Pixel 3 for this review, as well as a couple of wildcards - the Realme 3 Pro and the OnePlus 6t. We had these two lying around, and since the beta program for Q has expanded to more third-party phones than ever, we thought we'd give it a spin on those handsets as well, to see how the experience of using a Q beta compares to a Pixel - more on that in the next section on this page.
Going back to bugs on the Pixel 3, the one we've encountered the most is certain settings being changed and then not showing that - despite the intended behavior having actually changed. Conversely, some settings were wrongly labelled in their top-level menu by default. For example, going to Settings > Apps & Notifications > Notifications > Advanced > Swipe actions showed these being "left to dismiss, right to show menu" but the behavior at the time was the opposite. Tapping on "Swipe actions" brings up a pop-up selection tool in which the appropriate choice was actually selected.
Additionally, animations feel quite janky when using the new full screen gesture system (that isn't actually truly full screen because Google hates to accurately and consistently name things). This is true no matter which swipe action you perform, but it's especially bad when you swipe up from the bottom when you're on a home screen - at first the app drawer comes up, but if you pause your swipe then the multitasking menu takes over in a very weird UI move. When using the gesture to go back to your home screen, a lot of times there's lag involved.
These are all things Google can fix by the time Q hits the streets, and the beta can probably be used by a lot of people without any huge issues. That said, things may still break at any time, so it's definitely not recommended to install this on your daily driver unless you're 100% okay with that.
What's different on the other phones
Realme is a very young brand but it's already got one handset in the Android Q beta, and that is the 3 Pro. We've tested how this handles the beta compared to the Pixel 3, and in one word the answer is: worse. Some important things don't work, so while it's nice that you get to test a stock Android beta on more smartphones than ever before, be warned that on anything but a Pixel it performs more like an early alpha version than a reasonably polished beta.
That wouldn't be an issue in and of itself, but it's weird to see the same beta 3 acting so different on another phone. This probably goes to show how much effort Google puts into optimizing its new OS releases for its Pixels - or at least its latest-gen Pixels.
OK, so the Realme 3 Pro's Android Q beta theoretically has the same features as the Pixel 3's Android Q beta, in practice though some things are missing - for example from the Gestures menu in Settings > System. On the Realme, this houses just three options: Jump to camera (by double tapping the power button), System navigation (where you choose whether to use the new "Fully gestural" navigation, the old 2-button navigation, or the even older three-button system), and Prevent ringing (when you press power and volume up together).
Sparse Gestures menu in Settings
On the other hand, on the Pixel 3 the same menu also has a Swipe fingerprint for notifications option, as well as Flip camera (to switch to selfie by double-twisting your phone), Double-tap to check phone, Lift to check phone, and Flip to Shhh (all of these are self-explanatory). Of course Google also adds a toggle for Active Edge, but that's a hardware feature that's missing from the Realme 3 Pro so we weren't expecting to see it anyway. This very detailed list is meant to show that all Android Q beta 3 builds aren't identical, and by using one on a phone that isn't made by Google you are not guaranteed to get the exact same experience as you do on a Pixel.
We observed the same on the OnePlus 6t, only this time around even more features were missing. It seems OnePlus has tried to create an Oxygen OS flavor of the Q beta, and OnePlus's dashboard replaces the Google Discover feed. None of the gesture navigation systems was available on the phone - not even the basic Pixel ones or the OnePlus's custom ones.
And then we have the bugs - which abound from the moment you first set up both non-Pixel phones. Random things like security unlock setting resetting all the time, the vibration turning constantly on, some system hints being always visible without an option to dismiss them, or the multi-tasking menu refusing to appear from the lockscreen. So yes, trying the beta on these two third-party phones has not been a smooth sailing and that's understandable.
Conclusion
We appreciate the fact that for the past few years Google has decided to develop new Android versions more in the open than before, with a bunch of betas accessible to developers and interested consumers alike. This lets us see every new iteration coming into shape - it's like watching the sausage getting made, only more exciting and less gross.
That said, at this moment Android Q is still a few more betas removed from its finalized state, so unsurprisingly it lacks a bit (or more) of polish here and there, and there are the inevitable bugs too. Compared to the Pie beta that came out last year during I/O, this build feels a bit less ready for the prime time, a bit more buggy and with slightly more issues. But that's not us complaining - after all, we got to play with its new features, which other Pixel owners are only going to see in August at the earliest.
Speaking of features, it's great that Google has realized that its first attempt at a gesture navigation system was fundamentally broken and decided to fix it, but the way it chose to do that has introduced a big new problem that relates to a conflict with accessing apps' navigation drawers. We really don't believe that the company will manage to convince all app developers to quickly set 'exclusion zones' for the Back gesture, and even if this happens different apps may define the exclusion zone differently, which will make for a very poor and unpredictable user experience. To alleviate this developers could just get rid of the slide-out drawers entirely, but we don't seen that happening either, and especially not in a timely manner by the time Q is finished, so our hope is that Google itself will further tweak the new gestures to account for this issue.
As it seems from this beta, Android 10 Q will not be a huge update - aside from the navigation system and minor revamps to notification control it doesn't really change a lot of user-facing things, unless you count the system-wide manually-engageable dark theme to be huge. So it's more of an iterative improvement which funnily enough might not be worth carrying the "10" version number and the big things that implies. Google keeps modifying notifications with every new release, and shuffling things over in Settings, but if you update your Pixel from Pie to Q the new iteration will definitely not feel very different and the learning curve, if there will even be one for you, is bound to be minimal.
This year the beta program has expanded to include more smartphones than ever before, although this doesn't mean you're getting the exact same experience as you do when you install it on a Pixel 3. It all starts with enrolling in the beta - if you have a Pixel, you just go to Google's special website and click a button. That's it, you'll receive the build via an over-the-air software update. For any other phone, you need to undergo a manual download and installation procedure which is much more cumbersome for the average consumer and there is not always a clearly described rollback procedure.
That might be for the best, though, given the state of the beta build on other handsets. We've tested it on the Realme 3 Pro and the OnePlus 6T, and while the software on the Pixel 3 is possible to use on a daily basis (if you don't mind all the minor bugs it comes with), on the other two devices there were too many features missing or too many bugs in general to allow for trouble-free use as a daily driver. Also note that we tried using the beta on a Pixel XL and just couldn't - it's so buggy and laggy that it's only worth installing on such an old device if you're a developer testing apps, perhaps.
While it's commendable that Google has decided to extend the software support window for the original Pixels in this manner, this reveals that keeping its older handsets speedy across new versions of the OS is definitely not a priority for the company - and that might be something to keep in mind whenever you think about shelling out top dollar for a flagship Pixel.
If your phone isn't a Pixel you're still going to be in for a wait after Google officially drops the stable build of Q, as usual. Also, as is the unfortunate tradition in the Android world, how many of the new user-facing improvements you'll actually get to experience when your device's manufacturer decides to issue the update to Q is debatable.
Android One phones should be the closest to Pixels in this regard, and are supposed to be next in line, timeline-wise, to actually see the update - although that's the theory, in the past it hasn't always held true. And then there are handsets such as the Essential Phone, which essentially (excuse the pun) runs a stock-like version of the OS and gets updates pretty fast, so it's likely you'll see everything we described here on it.
Next come the skins that are customized but still don't stray far from the stock experience, like OnePlus' OxygenOS or Asus' new ZenUI 6, which should also come with almost all of these improvements, even if it could take months for the update to actually appear.
Now, we have to note that a few Android device makers have promised very quick updates this year after Q is finalized, but we'll believe that when we see it. We're only skeptical because we've been burned before by such promises, and it's unfortunately still true that if you want to get a new Android version on day one, you need to own a Pixel.
The heavier your OEM's skin, the less chance you'll have any of Google's UI changes built-in. With the heaviest of skins, such as MIUI, it doesn't even make a lot of sense to wait for a new Android version to reach you, because any new design or functional change you may see usually comes as part of a MIUI update. Regardless of which phone you have, though, all of the under the hood enhancements that Google has built into Android Q are definitely coming your way once the update is available for you, if that's any consolation.
We're looking forward to taking the final, stable build of Android 10 Q for a spin when Google releases it later this summer, so stay tuned for our full review coming soon after that.
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