Sony announces Android 11 roadmap for Xperia smartphones

With Android 11 rolling out, Sony has just shared their release schedule for its Xperia line of smartphones, starting with the Xperia 1 II from December 2020. Xperia 5 II and Xperia 10 II to follow from the end of January 2021, with the original Xperia 1 and Xperia 5 completing the list of eligible devices with planned rollouts from February 2021.

Android 11 looks and feels very similar to Android 10. One would find over a dozen new features, some of which are on the Wishlist of many. These include but not limited to:

• Conversation notifications – There are now three notification categories: Conversations, Alerting, and Silent. 
• Notification history – A new feature allowing one the option of saving every single notification that landed on the phone within the last 24 hours. One can check the running list, find the accidentally swiped notification, and see if anything was missed.
• Conversation bubbles – Similar to chat bubbles, which were first implemented on Facebook Messenger, the difference being that Android 11’s implementation works with any chat app.
• Screen recording – Video screen recording is now supported directly in Android 11 and no longer requires the usage of a separate app.
• Media controls – Android 11 has moved the media player one level up to the Quick Settings section with an additional button on the top right-hand side of the panel that allows one to toggle to the output system one desires (i.e., Phone speaker to Bluetooth headphones).
• Smart device control – Smart devices in the household such as air conditioning, light, or security systems can be controlled via an integrated app that opens automatically with a long press on the power button.
• One-time permissions and auto-reset – Android 11 now provides more control over privacy and security to its users than ever before. The star feature is the one-time permission. One could provide permissions only for that specific session, not forgetting the auto-rest feature, which will “auto-reset” apps that one hasn’t used in a while to ensure that the permissions granted are still relevant.

In addition to the newly added functionalities provided by Android 11, the update will also provide support for slow-motion film recordings in 4K HDR with 120 fps to the Xperia 1 II.