Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority
TL;DR
- We have more details on Google’s efforts to revamp the Do Not Disturb mode in next year’s Android 16 update.
- In the latest Android beta, we’ve discovered that the in-development feature is no longer called Priority Modes but instead just Modes.
- In addition, we’ve discovered that Android will display the individual icon for any Modes you enable on the status bar, lock screen, and AOD.
Development on the next major release of Android, ie. Android 16, is well underway, but since we’re more than half a year away from its stable release, a lot of its new features aren’t ready yet. However, we can get a glimpse at some of Android 16’s new features by poking around in the Android beta releases that Google pushes out. Following the release of yet another new Android beta earlier today, we managed to uncover even more details on one of the biggest new features in Android 16: Modes.
Modes is the new name of the Priority Modes feature that we thoroughly documented earlier this month. This upcoming feature is basically a supercharged version of Android’s Do Not Disturb mode. The reason the Do Not Disturb mode needs to be overhauled is that it’s pretty limited right now. You can either activate it manually or set it to activate between certain times or during certain calendar events from a specific calendar. If you want to set multiple schedules based on other times or calendars, though, then you have to modify the mode every single time. You can’t just create another copy of Do Not Disturb mode with its own settings. That’s what the new Modes feature in Android 16 will solve, thankfully.
In Android 16, you’ll be able to create many different modes, each with their own name, icon, activation trigger, display settings, and notification settings. You can manually toggle modes from either the Settings app or from a new Quick Settings tile that Google is working on. Our previous report on Android 16’s new Modes feature, which again used to be called Priority Modes, not only showed off the UI for creating new modes but also how to toggle them, in case you’re interested.
With the release of Android 15 QPR1 Beta 3 earlier today, we noticed that not only did Google rebrand Priority Modes to just Modes as we mentioned earlier but it also updated the OS to show an icon in the status bar, lock screen, and AOD that corresponds to the current mode that’s enabled. This will make it easier to tell at a glance what mode is currently enabled.
In Android 15 QPR1 Beta 3, Google also slightly tweaked the UI for the dialog that appears when you tap the Quick Settings tile. Modes are now displayed in a single-column, vertically scrolling list instead of a dual-column list. I personally prefer the old dual-column list since it makes better use of available space, but perhaps Google switched to a single-column list to leave space for more information to be added, such as a short description for each mode.
Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority
Another small tweak is that the Quick Settings tile itself now displays the icon of the first mode that you enable. It also shows the name of the first mode but switches to saying the number of modes active if more than one is enabled. Speaking of which, if you ever have more than one mode enabled, then only the first one’s icon will appear on the status bar, lock screen, and AOD.
In its current state, the Modes feature lets you choose from over 40 unique icons, but that number could grow before Android 16’s release. I don’t know if Google plans to let you use your own icon, but I’m starting to doubt it will for stability reasons. Even if you can’t pick your own icon, the 40 existing ones are pretty broad and distinct from one another, so you shouldn’t have any issues finding the right icon for your custom mode.
