Quote:A couple of weeks ago, Google released the first Developer Preview of Android 11, earlier than what we've seen for previous versions of the OS. Naturally, the company announced a slew of improvements that come with the new version, but that hasn't stopped many other new features from being discovered over the past couple of weeks.
 
Now, there's yet another one, as Reddit user jotafett (via 9to5Google) has discovered a welcome improvement to wireless charging. If you place your phone on a charging pad, but it's not aligned properly, you'll now get a warning to let you know that it isn't charging as it should be. This is likely possible because the phone can detect that it is receiving some current, but not enough to actually charge the battery. Having this kind of warning built into the OS should save users some frustration when they pick up the phone only to realize it was never charging in the first place.
 
This is one of the many usability improvements that have been spotted in Android 11 so far. Other additions include the ability to hide notifications while recording video and a built-in screen recorder, though it's worth noting that the latter was also included in preview builds of Android 10 and ended up being cut.
 
For the past couple of years, Google has released the first developer preview of the next version of Android in March, and the preview program then expands to non-Pixel devices at the Google I/O developer event. An official release usually happens towards the end of the summer, but that could change since the first preview is also out earlier than usual.