Android 15 beta is here — these are the biggest upgrades so far

The first Android 15 beta is now available, but this isn’t just another developer preview either, we’ve already had two of those. Google says it’s time to release the software to early adopters so they can try out the upcoming software upgrade for themselves. Just as long as they have an eligible Pixel phone, that is. 

This is far from a stable version of Android 15, though. The idea behind public beta testing is that large groups of people are more likely to find problems in the software better than any team of in-house testers could. But it does mean those of you eager to test out Android 15’s newest features are now able to.

While some of these features may not work exactly as Google intended, there is a bunch of cool new stuff you can take advantage of right now. Here are the biggest changes to arrive in the Android 15 beta.

ANDROID 15 BETA FEATURES

Edge to edge displays

As rumored, Android 15 apps have edge-to-edge display switched on by default. This means that the app window will stretch to every edge of the display, even if there’s a system bar in the way, like the status bar that lives at the top of the screen,

This means app developers won’t leave a blank space where the system bar would normally be. That’s important because it means if there’s ever a case when the system bar changes location, like when your phone is in landscape mode, you don’t end up with a random black bar on your screen. The same is true if the status bar disappears for whatever reason.

Phone displays are pretty big these days, and it would be a shame not to take full advantage of all that space. So Android 15 is making sure that actually happens.

OS-level app archiving

Google first announced app archiving support last year, and Android 15 will add support for the feature at an OS level. The idea being that this should make it easier for apps to be able to implement archiving. That way users will be able to partially delete apps they don’t use that often, and free up some space in their phone’s storage.