Google has officially announced its latest version of the Android operating system – Android 15 – after making several preview versions available to developers. The company revealed in a blog post on its official website that the new version has started rolling out to eligible “Pixel” phones, with other manufacturers expected to release the update for their phones soon. The update includes security features that help keep your health, financial, and sensitive personal information protected from theft and fraud, as well as features that enhance your phone usage with the help of artificial intelligence technologies. In this article, let’s highlight some of these features that you should know in preparation for using them when Android 15 arrives on your phone.
Key Features Expected in Android 15
Theft Detection Lock Feature
Google aims to secure smartphones and protect them from theft in its new Android release by introducing an advanced feature supported by artificial intelligence, called “Theft Detection Lock,” which tracks measurements from internal device sensors, such as accelerometers and gyroscopes, and uses this information to determine if the phone has been stolen. If the device theft is detected, the new feature immediately locks the phone so it cannot be restarted unless the PIN code or pre-saved biometric measurements on the phone, like fingerprint or facial recognition, are entered.
Expectedly, a phone thief in this case may attempt a factory reset of the device to erase the personal identification number and biometric measurements stored on the device to bypass the login process using biometrics. Here, the new Theft Detection Lock feature in Android 15 includes an additional protection feature known as “Factory Reset Protection,” which will prevent resetting the phone after a factory reset unless the user can input the login details for the Google account associated with the device.
Private Space Feature
Android 15 also gives a wider sector of Android users more privacy through a feature known as “Private Space,” similar to the “Secure Folder” feature currently available on Samsung phones and devices. This feature can prevent intruders from accessing your private apps if you leave your phone unlocked in a public place or if you share a phone or tablet with others and want to maintain privacy for specific apps you use.
Apps Archiving
Sometimes our phones fill up with unused apps that take up a significant portion of the device’s storage capacity, affecting its overall performance. Android 15 offers a practical solution to this problem with the Apps Archiving feature, allowing users to remove a portion of an app’s files to reduce the space it occupies on the device instead of uninstalling the app completely, keeping some user data stored on the device for possible reinstallation later without starting from scratch.
Partial Screen Recording
Screen recording, which allows users to record a video of their phone screen, has been available for several years on most Android phones and devices. Android 15 is expected to enhance this feature, enabling users to record a specific app window instead of the entire phone or device screen. This allows for better video recordings without unintentional errors like showing notifications on the screen or accidentally switching to another app you do not want to include in the recording.
Foldable Phone Functionality Improvements
Foldable phones, like the Galaxy Z Fold 5, feature relatively large internal screens that make them particularly suitable for activities such as watching movies, reading books, playing video games, and more. Android 15 introduces some enhancements to foldable phone functionality, allowing users to continue performing various tasks on foldable phones by enabling a simple gesture in the phone’s settings menu. This gesture lets you transfer your activity from the internal phone screen to the external screen by swiping the bottom edge of the screen upwards. This feature can help make better use of foldable phone screens.
Battery Health Measurement
Monitoring the battery health is one of the new amazing features that Android 15 offers, displaying the current charging capacity percentage, or how much energy the battery can currently store compared to its full charging capacity when it was new. This feature can help measure the safety of the device’s battery, identify its condition, and know when it becomes necessary to replace it with a new one. This feature has been available on iPhones and Apple devices for years, and this is the first time it will be available to Android users.
Improved Multitasking on Large Screens
For phones and smart devices with large screens, Android 15 also adds more improvements to the screen display mode. One of these enhancements is multitasking support through screen elements like the taskbar that appears on the screen and can be pinned permanently for quick app switching, and the split screen shortcut key. Split-screen functionality allows performing multiple tasks on the phone by displaying different app windows side by side on the screen. With the split screen shortcut key on devices using Android 15, you can create a shortcut to access a pair of apps directly from the home screen and run them together in split-screen view.
