Android 11 Developer Preview 3 (DP3) has now officially been released and there are some fairly big changes in store for the Recent Apps UI and functionality. That’s based on recent reports detailing a new sharing UI associated with the core Android feature.
For clarity, the change is being pushed to the interface that appears when users navigate to their most recently used applications. That’s the overview view that showcases apps that are currently running. Typically, it’s found behind a recent icon in the navigation bar or under a swipe-up-and-hold gesture.
The recent apps page in Android DP3 has been redesigned with several new buttons. Those are a “Screenshot” and “Share” button. Both of the new features work pretty much as might be expected. The Screenshot button lets users take a screenshot of a running application. Users simply select the app they want after clicking the new icon.
Conversely, the share button lets users choose a currently running app. Then it immediately loads up the Android system-level sharing panel so the screenshot can be shared.
Screenshot and Share are not the only new Android 11 DP3 recent apps features
Aside from the two buttons highlighted above, a third button has also reportedly been spotted. Google dubbed that button “Select” and chose a hand-shaped icon to represent the action. It isn’t immediately clear exactly what “Select” does. But it isn’t out of the question that the company may be preparing a way to interact with multiple recent apps at once.
For example, users may be able to select multiple apps to take a screenshot of. Or the search giant may plan some other multi-select functionality. Of course, it may just be one more way for users to select an individual app and interact with it.
The Select button has not been well explored. It only appears for some users some of the time and only briefly. It also doesn’t appear to have any functionality linked directly to it with this Android 11 preview.
One other noteworthy change in the recent apps UI for Android 11 DP3 is the scale of the thumbnail panels themselves. Google has scaled the thumbnails up so that they fill almost the entire display area. Only a small margin of space is left to the left and right, with just enough space at the top for the pull-down notifications panel. The bottom spacing is a bit wider, allowing for the new Screenshot and Share icons.
This is the final preview for Android 11
Android 11 DP3 is the third and final developer-specific release for the upcoming OS update. That’s set to be followed by three further “Beta” builds for wider testing. Release for the beta Android 11 builds is set to start next month, with the second following in June and the third in Q3 2020. The stable release of next-gen Android will follow.
So these new recent apps sharing features from Android 11 DP3 are among the final to be added before Google releases Android 11. But, as highlighted by the mysterious “Select” option, that doesn’t mean there won’t be tweaks before the final release. So the features should not be taken as finalized just yet.
