System-wide Dark Theme
To enable the dark theme, you just have to tap on the “Set Dark mode” option in Display settings. You can set the dark theme to always be enabled or automatically be enabled depending on the time of day. Once enabled, the Settings, Launcher, Launcher settings, and Files app all gain a dark gray tinge. The volume panel, Quick Settings panel, and notifications all turn black. Even third-party notifications like download notifications from Google Chrome are themed black. The Google Phone app, Google Contacts, Messages, Google News, Google Play Games, YouTube, and more already have native dark themes, but we don’t know how these Google apps will interact with Android Q’s dark theme toggle.
Permissions Revamp
with Android Q there is huge permission revamp in the Settings app that allows you to get an overview of permission access by apps and restrict certain permissions like location only while the app is in use. The permission page for each app is also revamped, and you can quickly see which apps have been allowed or denied access to a certain permission (like the microphone.) The app info screen has also been revamped, giving you quick access to open the app, uninstall the app, or force stop the app.
Desktop Mode
New Developer Option called “force desktop mode.” Its description reads “force experimental desktop mode on secondary displays.” This sounds to me like it’s going to be a Samsung DeX or EMUI Easy Projection-type feature, but I wasn’t able to actually test it since nothing happened when I plugged in my USB Type-C to HDMI adapter. Also, for some reason, I was unable to connect to Wi-Fi so I couldn’t test whether this experimental desktop mode works via the cast option.
Developer Options
There’s a ton of new Developer Options in Android Q. Game Update Package Preferences” which asks you to select a graphics driver. I don’t have enough information about what this does yet, but once I do I’ll post an update. There are a lot of new feature flags, only some of which actually work. One of them enables a shortcut to a built-in screen recorder provided by the SystemUI.
This screen recorder can be accessed by long-pressing on the screenshot button in the power menu, but the UI is currently unfinished. (The power menu also has a new shortcut to launch the emergency dialer.) Another feature flag allows for the current wallpaper to be shown on the Always on Display. This is a feature on the Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, but it’s now being made available in AOSP for any device with an Always on Display feature to take advantage of .Setting has been moved to Display –> Lock screen display. The battery icon in the Always on Display also seems to have shifted from the center of the screen to the top-right.
Accessibility
Two new settings have been added to the Accessibility page: Time to take action and Time to read. The time to take action lets you choose “how long to show messages that ask you to take action, but are only visible temporarily.” On the other hand, the time to read feature lets you choose “how much time you want to read and take action on messages that automatically go away.” The latter seems related to the heads-up notifications introduced with Android 5.0 Lollipop while the former may refer to snackbars. The images shown in the feature description are clearly just placeholders.
- New sensors off” Quick Settings tile that seems to disable all radios and turn on airplane mode. It might be set up to do more in the future, but that’s what I’ve found so far. It’s possible that this will be a tin foil hat mode to disable all sensors on the device that can’t normally be turned off
- The screen lock setting has two new options: “SmartLock only extends unlock” and “Lock screen when trust is lost.” The former lets a trusted device keep your smartphone awake for longer, but doesn’t allow it to unlock the device once it has been locked. The latter option will lock the smartphone when the last trusted device is no longer trusted.
- The built-in files app now lets you filter by images, documents, audio, video, etc. when browsing directories.
- The app installation dialog is no longer full-screen. Instead, it’s a pop-up like on tablets.
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