Modern smartphones aim to build ecosystems around themselves, whether by the operating system or the manufacturer. There are a lot of reasons why an Android user would prefer to get an Android tablet over an iPad — because of the benefits you can get from the improving ecosystem. The new cross-device services feature exemplifies this.
If you’re one of the people with more than one Android device signed into the same Google account, you might notice that managing notifications can be annoying. Well, the time of having to manually swipe away that Gmail notification on all three of your devices might be over.
Android 15 Might Be Able To Sync The State Of Notifications Across All Your Android Devices
If you have an Android phone and an Android tablet signed into the same Google account and you get a notification from an app like Gmail, that notification will appear on both devices at the same time. There’s no problem with that part of the equation. However, if you address the notification on one device, it’ll stick around, untouched, on the other. With tens of apps that use this kind of behavior, you can see why it’s annoying.
There’s good news though, as it seems like Android 15 might save us from having to deal with this. Thanks to Mishaal Rahman at Android Authority, we now have a good idea regarding one of the changes that’ll be coming to Android 15 QPR 1 thanks to some code seen in the beta.
The code refers to a “Sync Across Devices” feature that is seen in the Notifications section of the Settings application, making us heavily lean towards the feature being used to sync the state of notifications across the various Android devices that you might own. The best part is that it seems this feature will be baked into Android 15, and not one of those Pixel-exclusive treats.
This Feature Gives The Vibe Of A Cross-Device Services Feature, Even If Not In Name
In July this year, Google introduced a new facet of the Android ecosystem called Cross-Device Services. This suite of features came in as a way to enhance the synergy between compatible Android devices that you own, helping strengthen the Android ecosystem.
At the moment, there are only two official features available, which are Call Casting, which lets you switch a call from one Android device straight to another with no trouble whatsoever, while the other feature is Instant Hotspot, which lets you share one device’s internet connection with the other one in a flash. These features are made for people with more than one Android gadget.
As you can see, this notification syncing feature sort of fits right into that wheelhouse. At the moment, it doesn’t seem like it’ll officially be part of this suite of cross-device features, but in spirit, it has the same aura (so I won’t be surprised if it makes it there in the official release). In the end, it enrichens the Android experience, and I’m excited to see how convenient it is in actual use.
