Android 15 could revamp the volume panel and make it collapsible

Once more in 2021, Google launched Supplies You, a big revamp to the company’s design language. Supplies You design components have been first built-in into that yr’s Android 12 launch. Although Android’s current design hasn’t modified drastically since then, it has obtained minor tweaks inside the few releases since. Throughout the upcoming Android 15 launch, Google is lastly planning to revamp the system amount panel UI.

The quantity panel appears when the patron presses a amount key after which taps the three-dot menu on the bottom. The current design choices 5 utterly totally different sliders for each amount stream. From prime to bottom, these embody media, identify, ring, notification, and alarm amount controls. A thin slider controls the extent of each. Apart from the panel’s header, stream icons, and sliders, there are moreover buttons to open Android’s sound and vibration settings and dismiss the panel. Lastly, if there’s any energetic media playback, a shortcut to open Android’s media output switcher will appear beneath the media amount slider.

Android’s current amount panel design is a carbon copy of the amount slider half under Settings > Sound & vibration. It’s as a result of the amount panel is certainly comprised of “slices” — a attribute launched once more in Android 9 Pie — taken from that very net web page.

The model new amount panel UI I was able to manually activate inside the latest Android 15 Developer Preview 2 launch, nonetheless, is decoupled from this. The model new amount panel design, as confirmed beneath, choices so much thicker, pill-shaped sliders. A dot is positioned on the end the place the slider’s most value is, and the icons are moreover tappable to shortly mute that stream.

Android 15’s new amount panel will be collapsible. Tapping the button subsequent to the media amount slider collapses or expands the panel. At any time when there’s energetic media playback, the amount panel is collapsed by default. In every other case, it opens in its completely expanded state.

The “sound & vibration” header will be gone, and as a substitute is a persistent media output shortcut. Beforehand, the media output shortcut solely appeared at any time when there was energetic media playback. The updated design reveals the shortcut regardless of media playback state. Nonetheless, when there isn’t any energetic media playback, tapping the shortcut doesn’t open the media output switcher. As a substitute, it seems the shortcut stays merely to tell the patron which audio system is presently coping with playback.

Google moreover added some playful animations to the model new Android 15 amount panel. As you presumably can see inside the video up prime, the stream establish textual content material strikes with the slider so that you presumably can always see the stream establish as you alter the amount diploma. The current amount diploma will be confirmed reasonably than the icon everytime you’re transferring the slider.

Apart from the model new design, the amount panel may even ground further controls for points like spatial audio and “noise administration.” Nonetheless, I wasn’t able to ground these controls all through testing. This updated amount panel design isn’t enabled by default inside the current Android 15 Developer Preview 2 assemble, nevertheless Google may roll it out inside the upcoming beta launch.