Android 15 could have a new screen feature to keep you doomscrolling in bed

We're gradually hearing more and more about Android 15 and what features it'll bring – including ones Google hasn't announced yet – and new leaks point to changes in display settings and notification management.

Some code digging by Mishaal Rahman at Android Authority has revealed a new extra, extra dim setting for the screen. This would in theory make it more comfortable to look at your phone in bed at night, or in any particularly dark setting.

Android can already adapt screen brightness to the light levels of the surrounding environment, and there's already an accessibility feature called "extra dim" that reduces the glare of bright colors that can be toggled on and off.

The new "even dimmer" feature would be on top of that and is perhaps designed to be turned on permanently. It's for "extending the brightness below [the] traditional range" according to the hidden code. The thinking is that it'd work in tandem with adaptive brightness for those times when you're in situations with very little ambient light.

Hiding notification channels

As for notifications, once again we're indebted to Mishaal Rahman at Android Authority for discovering a new setting for hiding unused notification channels, which should make it easier to manage the alerts you get from your apps.

In Android at the moment, apps can be set to show some notifications but not others – so you might want to know about WhatsApp calls but not WhatsApp messages, for example. However, how granular these options are is partly down to the developers.

It looks as though Android 15 will hide unused notification channels, so you don't have to spend a long time scrolling through less important channels to find the notification setting you want. It's not a huge change, but it makes life a little bit easier for users.

We also expect to see a storage health checker, NFC wireless charging, and satellite messaging improvements when Android 15 appears – and you can try the beta now. Google is likely to tell us much more about the upcoming software update at its Google I/O 2024 event, which starts on May 14.

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