Android 11 somewhat restricts aggressive ‘app killers’ from manufacturers

Google plans to give manufacturers less freedom in Android 11 when it comes to pruning background processes. They must notify users in good time of ‘app restrictions’ and an API for developers to check why an app has been closed.

The Android Engineering Team talks about that in a ama on Reddit. Manufacturers must notify users ‘in good time’ when an application is being throttled by the system in the background. “This gives users the opportunity to decline the restrictions,” the Google devs also state, but it is not entirely clear whether this option is included in the notification about this, or whether one is deep in the depths of the battery settings. must dive for this. Furthermore, it will no longer be permitted for manufacturers to use a whitelist handling apps, often their own, that are excluded from these optimizations.

So for developers there will be an API with which they can check for whatever reason their app has been discontinued. So here they can see whether this was the result of a crash, an action by the user or a choice of the operating system.

When an app is stopped in the background, it can cause several problems. The most prominent of these is that notifications no longer work. Google recognizes that these steps do not fully address the problem, but it must be progress.

Android 11 beta 2 came out earlier this week. It is available on Pixel phones. However, the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro also got beta 1 from their manufacturer. Google seems to want to release Android 11 on September 8.