Tim
Android users haven’t had a major change to the status bar in a number of years. With exception to front-facing cameras being placed in the middle of them, I’m more so referring to the icons you see up there, such as the battery and WiFi icons. After all these years, it’s looking like the Android team is ready to make some changes with Android 15.
Detailed by Mishaal Rahman, Android 15 is preparing changes for the WiFi signal strength, mobile signal strength, and battery icons. Once updated, they will have a segmented design, which is currently what we see on Samsung devices like the Galaxy S24 Ultra. However, Samsung and Google both use the vertical battery icon currently, but that also appears to be changing with Android 15 with a switch to a horizontal layout. It’s look similar to what iPhone users have, to be honest.
Above is a look at the old status bar icons (top) versus the updated ones (bottom). Besides the actual visual difference, the spacing is much more compact too. While we think the aesthetic is just fine, I can’t help but think it’s giving off old Huawei vibes. I mean, look at this.
Haptics: Rahman also reports that Google is adding more haptic feedback to actions throughout the status bar in Android 15. For example, should a user long press a tile, your phone will vibrate as it expands the details. Naturally, it’s hard to take a screenshot of haptic feedback, so we’ll just have to wait to experience this when it rolls out.
Both the UI and haptic changes are not turned on by default in the latest Android 15 Developer Preview, but we may see them turned on once the first public beta rolls out. In the meantime, this is something to look forward to. We’ve been looking at the same icons for a long time.
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