Have Your Android Phone Got These New Features Yet?

As the launch of the Android 11 operating system is getting closer, Google is rolling out several updates to all smartphones running Android 6 or higher, including a new Bedtime mode for better sleep, helpful tweaks in Android Auto, as well as improved accessibility for vision-limited people.

While the new updates seem unrelated, Google aims at making current tasks easier for you while cutting down on distractions or providing more information to help emergency personal in case of an accident.

New interface for Android Auto

Along with directions, the updated UI now shows a short life of your upcoming appointments on the calendar. If an appointment has a contact number, there is an inbuilt dialer button so you can easily call with a tap instead of having to do a lot of swiping and tapping to find the phone number. The revamped settings app also allows you to better control what you see on the infotainment screen of the car.

Bedtime mode and Sunrise Alarm

For those who want to relax at night, this mode will let you disable notifications after a chosen time, or set bedtime reminders that pop up on YouTube or choose a list of songs from Spotify or YouTube Music to relax before sleeping.

Meanwhile, the Sunrise Alarm feature will turn on the phone screen before the alarm goes off, getting brighter from orange to yellow to gently help you wake up. The two features will come in a new tab in Google Clock.

Upgraded Emergency Location Service

The revamped feature will provide language settings for emergency personnel, helping them communicate better with the user when arriving that the scene in case they don’t speak the same language.

Earthquake Alerts system

This feature will turn the Android phone into a mini mobile seismometer. When you sense a seismic activity, your phone will send data to the earthquake detection server of Google with coarse information on where the shaking is occurring. Using this data, Google and determine where there is an earthquake happening and surface that in Google Search.

New features for vision-impaired users

Google’s Lookout app utilizes computer vision to help people in their daily tasks. It now has a new feature allowing users to scan in documents with the phone camera, making it clearer and easier to read.

There’s also a new mode called Food Label that helps the user’s hand to position the camera better, assisting Lookout to scan the barcode on packaged food and describe the product more precisely.

Apart from that, the new Scan Document mode allows vision-impaired users to take snapshots more easily such as receipts and letters.

Google has also upgraded TalkBack, Android native screen reader, with a more accessible design that makes it easier for users to center texts on the screen as well as an updated, more user-friendly interface.

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