Google presents the summer news in Android

For a long time, Google has made it easier to introduce new functions in Android without the manufacturers having to rewrite the system. As a consequence of that, the new system versions are less dramatic, often mostly about screwing up features under the hood, such as providing support for new standards and improving security. The risk of that, of course, is that people stop thinking it’s important to upgrade at all, and The Android Show is a bit of a marketing campaign for upcoming news in the system. But not necessarily connected to Android 17. It can therefore sometimes feel a little strange when Google talks about news in Android that are not really system news. Like, for example, presenting that the video editing program Adobe Premiere is now coming to Android, or that the Instagram app is being adapted to tablets. Welcome to creators of course, but is it a system news?

A feature, also aimed at creators, that more explicitly affects the system is In Screen Reactions. It is a video, common for example on Youtube, where you play a content and have an inset image of a person watching it and how they react is part of what makes the video worth watching. Android now gets better opportunities to create such content by allowing an unlocked version of the user of the selfie camera to be placed directly on the screen together with the app to which it is to be reacted. It is unclear how it will work in practice, but presumably it will be part of the screen recording tool. The feature is coming to Pixelmobile this summer.

A new system function linked to Digital Wellbeing is called Pause Point. For apps that are distracting to you, you should get a box before the app starts that asks if this is what you really intended to do when you took out the phone, and gives you a ten second pause before the app starts. You can add a little breathing exercise here or set an app timer before you start. Based on Google’s description, it is unclear how the feature is implemented, but presumably you set in digital well-being which apps should start with the breakpoint.

Google also lists a number of new security features they have in the works. One such is protection against bank fraud. If you have your bank’s app and are logged in, Android will detect when a call comes in that is claimed to be from your bank and check that the bank is really trying to call you. If not, you will be told that it is a scam attempt. Of the smaller number of banks that Google enumerates, Revolut operates in Sweden, but it is unclear whether this function will also come to Swedish users.

The Android system is also getting better at detecting suspicious behavior that can be linked to known attack methods in the mobile. If apps try to hide their icon or launch in the background, or forward SMS to another rummer, red flags will be raised by the system. They also introduce stricter restrictions on which apps can access the system’s accessibility features.

If the phone is stolen, you can set it to only be unlocked biometrically, so thieves won’t be able to use your PIN if they have access to it, nor will they be able to turn off the phone or turn off its location sharing.

Android 17 also introduces a new location sharing feature where in an app you can share your location instantly with someone else, but only as long as you’re inside that app. In return, app security for location sharing has been further improved. Not only will you see your location shared in the same way you now see if, for example, the camera is being used, but you’ll also be able to click to see exactly which apps are using your location.

Additional miscellaneous functions that Google mentioned are a redesign of the system’s emojis and that the ability to quickly share to iPhones with Airdrop will come to significantly more mobiles in the future.