What you need to know
- A flag tucked away in Android 15's first beta shows Google is working to simplify and declutter an app's notification toggles in Settings.
- Users will only see toggles where notification channels they've been alerted through, while everything else is hidden in a sub-menu.
- Google pushed a Beta 1.1 patch for Android 15 testers on April 16, which fixes NFC for Pixels.
Google is working on a way that streamlines app notification management for the user in Android 15.
As spotted by Mishaal Rahman at Android Authority, enabling a new flag in the first Android 15 beta produces its ability to hide unused notification channels. Currently, with Android 14, the entire list of available app notification channels is available, which makes it hard to find what you don't need.
Many of these channels are created and toggled on despite the app never pushing an alert through it. Google's latest support allows the OS to hide notification channels that an app has never used.
Android 15 code shows that users will only see notification toggles for things they've been alerted to, like DMs, live videos, reminders, and more. Rahman states that everything else was tossed into a "Show unused channels" menu option in an app's three-dot menu in Settings.
From there, users can scroll through and see every channel an app possesses but has never been called to action. Once the function arrives, it should make it less daunting and a lot easier to quickly toggle off a notification you don't want.
Rahman states that the "show unused channel" option isn't appearing appropriately in the Android 15 beta unless the flag is enabled. While this likely means Google is still developing it, the feature's functionality appears quite stable and ready to go. It's likely Google could slide this into the software's stable release later this year.
The company achieved its first beta milestone with Android 15 on April 11. Enrolled testers and developers could hop in and experiment with new app archiving and improved TalkBack support. Regarding the latter, Google stated its boosted TalkBack support involves those with braille displays using HID standard over USB and secure Bluetooth.
More recently, Google rolled out a minor Beta 1.1 patch for Android 15 testers. One of its highlight fixes pertains to an NFC bug that previously rendered its functionality useless. Users were unable to use their Pixel phones for contactless payment; however, things seem to have been fixed. Several more fixes rolled in, such as one that solved an issue that prevented devices from installing the initial beta.
