Google accidentally pushes Android 11 Beta to some Pixels despite delayed announcement

Google was originally scheduled to make some announcements on June 3 that were on hold due to the cancelling of Google I/O. It was also supposed to release the Android 11 Beta on June 1 for the public (Android 11 is still under an extended “Developer Preview” phase). The event was recently postponed due to the ongoing tension across the United States.

Despite Google’s decision to postpone the event and release of the Android 11 Beta, it seems that the update was inadvertently pushed to some small number of Pixel devices. This, as reported by @mishaalRahman on Twitter. It’s unclear whether the users were on the most recent Developer Preview or if they were running official software.

Rather than be super vague about this, I’ll just say it up front:

Two people DMed me saying they got the Android 11 beta OTA update on their Pixel 4 XL.

Build #: RPB1.200504.018

— Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) June 1, 2020

Some new features of Android 11 were found in the new Beta. First, the new power menu that we reported about on Monday was in the build. Rahman ran a thread on Twitter showing the updates that were found so far.

This is the new “power menu” settings in Android 11. This will control the cards & passes and Controls feature that I tweeted about earlier today. pic.twitter.com/EdHNpXmwiR

— Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) June 1, 2020

There are new icon styles for the home screens including: pebble, vessel, and tapered rectangle. There’s a new “Bubble menu” which lets you minimize apps to a bubble that floats over the UI (much like Facebook Messenger’s Chat Heads).

Here’s the animation that plays on that page. pic.twitter.com/iVuU9jzTom

— Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) June 1, 2020

The Pixel Launcher’s app suggestions (as seen in the top row of the app drawer) can now be put in the bottom row of the home screens.

Onboarding/tutorial messages for the feature. pic.twitter.com/GS2K7gzizP

— Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) June 1, 2020

To see the full list of features found in the Android 11 Beta, check out this Twitter thread.

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