Android 10 is live — here are all the features, from dark mode to refined gesture controls, coming in the update’s full release.
Android 10 is one of the latest Google-made operating system updates you can get on your Android phone. It was released in late 2019, but it’s now rolling out over the course of 2020. Were you expecting it to have some sweet name? Well, with this Android update Google decided to finally ditch dessert names.ditch dessert names
There are plenty of Android 10 features that might improve the way you use your smartphone, lots of which are similar to those in Apple’s iOS 13, and many of which have been requested for a while.iOS 13
Android 11’s public beta is now here as a more recent update to your phone, and that official update is likely to land on your device toward the end of 2020. That said, Android 10 is the update you’re most likely to have or be able to get soon. Android 11’s
Among all the new Android 10 improvements, arguably ‘Dark Theme’ (a system-wide dark mode) is the most anticipated, along with Gesture Navigation which some Android ‘forks’ had anyway and Focus Mode for shutting off notifications when you want to get things done. There are more improvements, of course, and we’ve detailed them all below. Here’s how to download Android 10 to your phoneHere’s how to download Android 10 to your phoneEverything Android 11 will bring to your phoneAndroid 11What is Android 10? It’s the next version of AndroidWhen did Android 10 launch in full? Early September 2019How much does Android 10 cost? It’s a free update
Android 10 has been officially released, and it’s available on many — but not all — smartphones. Each individual company needs to tailor Android 10 for all its different phones, so recent devices have the update, but older ones might take a while to receive it.
Some smartphones come with Android 10 already pre-loaded like the OnePlus 8, Samsung Galaxy S20 and more, but not all do, especially those from smaller brands. OnePlus 8Samsung Galaxy S20
If your smartphone isn’t too old for Android 10, but doesn’t have it already, you can expect it to come soon.
There’s a nonogram puzzle hidden within Android 10, if you know where to look. Firstly, you’re going to have to be on Android 10 to access the easter egg. Once you’re on Android 10, go to phone Settings, select ‘About Phone’, then press ‘Android version’ repeatedly. Now you’ll be faced with a giant ‘Android 10’ logo.
Tap repeatedly on the ‘1’ of ‘Android 10’ and it’ll rotate – you can also drag it around the screen. What you need to do now is rotate it and drag it, until it’s positioned through the ‘0’ to make a ‘Q’.
(This is something of an in-joke, as Android 10 was supposed to be called Android Q as part of the traditional Google naming ceremony, but was switched to be named 10 to fit in with the search giant’s plans to make the new operating system versions a little easier to understand.)
Now press the Android logo once more, and the nonogram game will launch. It’s a game that starts on quite high difficulty, but when you work out how to play, it becomes incredibly logical – even more so that the visual answers to the puzzles are all Android-related images.
There is a bug in the game, and it’s that while traditionally nonograms have clues along the top and left side of the grid, the Android 10 game is too big, so you can only actually see either the top or left clues at once. Rotate the screen to see the other batch.
However, it’s an intriguing game to get as part of the main operating system — so go forth and find it.
Thanks to Google providing most of the information, as well as our playing around with Android 10, we’ve got a good idea of all the features in this version of Google’s operating system.
There’s a system-wide dark mode coming to Android 10 and it’s called Dark Theme. So far it’s limited to a few specific menus and apps, but more and more apps are becoming available in a dark mode all the time.
You’ll be able to trigger Dark Theme in two different ways, and both are in the notification shade. The first way is with a dedication Dark Theme quick settings button that switches between the default Light Theme and new Dark Theme.
The second way is to turn on a Battery Saver mode, which automatically turns on Android 10 Dark Theme. This is a boon for phones with OLED screens, which will burn fewer pixels by essentially turning off pixels in regions of the display that are intentionally black.
In iOS 12 Apple introduced Screen Time to monitor device use, and Android 10 has its own version called Digital Wellbeing, except it doesn’t just apply to your own handset. Digital Wellbeing gives you a range of ways to manage your screen time in a healthy way.
