Now the feature is making a comeback in the first Android 11 Developer Preview. Per Google’s own description of the feature: The first time a bubble shows up, you will be given the option to opt-out. This introduces the feature to users while giving them control over when they want to use them. When the device is locked or the always-on-display is active, bubbles appear just as a notification normally would. As Android has increasingly mirrored iOS in the past few years – gesture, anyone? – bubbles could be a way for Google to differentiate itself from Apple. While Apple has made major strides in the iPad’s multitasking abilities recently, iPhones are still largely focused on one task at time. Bubbles give you some of the flexibility of a windowed desktop system with less of the clutter.
It also remains to be seen how the feature will interact with apps that has already built in their own bubble functionality, such as Facebook Messenger and Google’s phone app. Last time I gave bubbles a try, the duplicate notifications quickly became annoying. Hopefully, the implementation is far less buggy than it was in the Android Q days. In a similar attempt to help you have more fluid chats, Android 11 also now includes a dedicated conversations section in the notification shade, and you can even insert images into notification replies. For more on the Android 11 Developer Preview, check out Google’s announcement at the source link below.
