Android 15 Could Potentially Revamp Android’s Volume Panel

The changes Google pushed with theAndroid 15developer previews have been mostly internal. The company, however, hinted at lots of features that will eventually crawl in as we get more beta builds and get closer to the release of stable Android 15. Ahead ofGoogle I/O 2024, where we will see the user-facing changes, one of the latest spottings suggests that Google may revamp the volume panel in Android 15, and it looks quite interesting.

We’ve seen Google change a lot of UI/UX components since Android 12, but one of the UI panels that still uses the old sliders and not theMaterial You-styled ones is the volume control panel. For those unaware, it pops up when you press the volume rocker and tap the three dots.

Mishaal Rahman (via Android Authority) was able to manually activate the new Volume Control panel on the latest Android 15 Developer Preview. The volume sliders are much thicker and the option to change the output device has been moved to the top. It is now greatly visible unlike previously where it blended in the menu and was harder to spot.Image Courtesy: Mishaal Rahman (Android Authority)

Mishaal says the slider icons are tappable and users canquickly mute or unmutethe stream by doing so. Thispanel collapses toowhen you press the arrow beside the “Media” volume stream. When you are playing something, the panel opens in its collapsed state and when nothing playing, all the sliders are displayed.

The media output shows up regardless of if the media is playing on your device, unlike previously. When there’s no media playing, the output shows what’s handling media playback, and when media is played, it shows the source from which the media is being played.

Mishaal also says that the design is not finalized. The menu could include things like noise control and spatial audio when it rolls out later this year. Google should start rolling out this feature in the upcoming Android 15 Beta, in April.

The sliders are from the Android Pie days. They look inconsistent when compared to other Material UI elements that were added as a part of Material You. Google should’ve addressed this during the Android 12 release but it’s great to see the volume panel finally getting the much-needed attention with playful animations.

Abubakar Mohammed

Abubakar covers Tech on Beebom. Hailing from a Computer Science background, the start of his love for Tech dates back to 2011, when he was gifted a Dell Inspiron 5100. When he’s not covering Tech, you’ll find him binge-watching anime and Tech content on YouTube, hunting heads in competitive FPS games, or exploring Teyvat in Genshin Impact. He has previously worked for leading publications such as Fossbytes, How-To Geek, and Android Police.

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