Android model 10
Google launched Android 10 — the primary Android model to shed its letter and be identified just by a quantity, with no dessert-themed moniker hooked up — in September of 2019. Most noticeably, the software program caused a completely reimagined interface for Android gestures, this time getting rid of the tappable Again button altogether and counting on a very swipe-driven method to system navigation.
Android 10 packed loads of different quietly necessary enhancements, together with an up to date permissions system with extra granular management over location information together with a brand new system-wide darkish theme, a brand new distraction-limiting Focus Mode, and a brand new on-demand reside captioning system for any actively enjoying media.
Android 10’s new privateness permissions mannequin provides some much-needed nuance into the realm of location information.
JR Raphael / IDG
Android model 11
Android 11, launched firstly of September 2020, was a reasonably substantial Android replace each underneath the hood and on the floor. The model’s most vital modifications revolve round privateness: The replace constructed upon the expanded permissions system launched in Android 10 and added within the choice to grant apps location, digicam, and microphone permissions solely on a restricted, single-use foundation.
Android 11 additionally made it tougher for apps to request the power to detect your location within the background, and it launched a function that mechanically revokes permissions from any apps you haven’t opened recently. On the interface degree, Android 11 included a refined method to conversation-related notifications together with a brand new streamlined media participant, a brand new Notification Historical past part, a local screen-recording function, and a system-level menu of connected-device controls.
Android 11’s new media participant seems as a part of the system Fast Settings panel, whereas the brand new connected-device management display comes up everytime you press and maintain your cellphone’s bodily energy button.
JR Raphael / IDG
Android model 12
Google formally launched the ultimate model of Android 12 in October 2021, alongside the launch of its Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Professional telephones.
In a twist from the earlier a number of Android variations, probably the most vital progressions with Android 12 have been totally on the floor. Android 12 featured the largest reimagining of Android’s interface since 2014’s Android 5.0 (Lollipop) model, with an up to date design customary generally known as Materials You — which revolves across the thought of you customizing the looks of your system with dynamically generated themes based mostly in your present wallpaper colours. These themes mechanically change anytime your wallpaper modifications, and so they lengthen all through your complete working system interface and even into the interfaces of apps that help the usual.
Android 12 ushered in a complete new feel and look for the working system, with an emphasis on easy colour customization.
Google
Floor-level components apart, Android 12 introduced a (lengthy overdue) renewed focus to Android’s widget system together with a bunch of necessary foundational enhancements within the areas of efficiency, safety, and privateness. The replace offered extra highly effective and accessible controls over how completely different apps are utilizing your information and the way a lot info you permit apps to entry, as an illustration, and it included a brand new remoted part of the working system that enables AI options to function solely on a tool, with none potential for community entry or information publicity.
Android model 13
Android 13, launched in August 2022, was concurrently one of the crucial bold updates in Android historical past and one of the crucial delicate model modifications so far.
On tablets and foldable telephones, Android 13 launched a slew of serious interface updates and additions geared toward bettering the large-screen Android expertise — together with an enhanced split-screen mode for multitasking and a ChromeOS-like taskbar for straightforward app entry from wherever.
The brand new Android-13-introduced taskbar, as seen on a Google Pixel Fold cellphone.Google
On common telephones, Android 13 caused far much less noticeable modifications — largely just a few enhancements to the system clipboard interface, a brand new native QR code scanning perform inside the Android Fast Settings space, and a smattering of under-the-hood enhancements.
Android model 14
Following a full eight months of out-in-the-open refinement, Google’s 14th Android model landed firstly of October 2023 within the midst of the corporate’s Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Professional launch occasion.
Just like the model earlier than it, Android 14 doesn’t seem like a lot on the floor. That’s partly due to the pattern of Google transferring an increasing number of towards a improvement cycle that revolves round smaller ongoing updates to particular person system-level components year-round — one thing that’s truly a big benefit for Android customers, even when it does have an ungainly impact on folks’s notion of progress.
However regardless of the delicate nature of its first impression, Android 14 features a honest quantity of noteworthy new stuff. The software program introduces a brand new system for dragging and dropping textual content between apps, as an illustration, in addition to a brand new sequence of native customization choices for the Android lock display.
Android 14 contains choices for utterly altering the looks of the lock display in addition to for customizing which shortcuts present up on it.
JR Raphael / IDG
Android 14 offers plenty of new enhancements to privateness and safety, too, together with a brand new settings-integrated dashboard for managing all of your well being and health information and controlling which apps and gadgets can entry it. And it provides in a extra info-rich and context-requiring system for seeing precisely why apps need entry to your location after they request such a permission.
Past that, Android 14 includes a first style of Google’s AI-generated customized wallpaper creator, although that’s out there solely on the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Professional to start out.
You may generate all types of fascinating wallpapers in seconds through Android 14’s AI generator function — however solely on the Pixel 8 or Pixel 8 Professional for now.
JR Raphael / IDG
The software program additionally sports activities a sequence of serious accessibility additions, comparable to an enhanced on-demand magnifier, a neater option to enhance font measurement in any app, improved help for listening to support connections, and a built-in choice to have your cellphone flash its digicam mild anytime a brand new notification arrives.
Android model 15
Google technically launched Android 15 in September 2024, however in an uncommon twist, that was solely the launch of the software program’s uncooked supply code. The brand new Android model didn’t present up even on the corporate’s personal Pixel gadgets till simply over a month later, in mid-October.
With Google more and more providing Android enhancements outdoors of the formal working system context, a few of the extra fascinating updates in current months aren’t related on to Android 15 itself. As an example, the Android Circle to Search system and new theft safety options have proven up all through 2024 for gadgets working even older Android variations.
As for Android 15 itself, although, the replace introduces plenty of noteworthy new options — together with a system-level Non-public Area choice that allows you to hold delicate apps out of sight and accessible solely with authentication. The software program additionally additional enhances the multitasking programs launched in Android 13 with the brand new choice to hold the large-screen-exclusive Android taskbar current always and the brand new potential to launch particular pairs of apps collectively right into a side-by-side split-screen with a single faucet.
When you arrange Android 15’s new Non-public Area function, sure apps seem in a particular protected — and optionally hidden — space of your app drawer.
JR Raphael / IDG
Past that, Android 15 features a redesigned system quantity panel, a brand new choice to mechanically reenable a tool’s Bluetooth radio a day after it’s been disabled, and a Pixel-specific Adaptive Vibration function that intelligently adjusts a cellphone’s vibration depth based mostly on the surroundings.
Adaptive Vibration and a redesigned quantity panel present welcome upgrades to the Android audio expertise.
JR Raphael / IDG
Add in a brand new charging-time connected-device-control display saver, a space-saving app archiving choice for sometimes used apps, and a long-under-development predictive again visible that allows you to see a peek at the place you’re headed earlier than you get there — and this small-seeming replace is definitely shaping as much as be a reasonably hefty replace development.
This text was initially revealed in November 2017 and most lately up to date in October 2024.