Android 17 could bring full-screen apps to your phone’s always-on display
 

TL;DR

• Google is developing a new “Min Mode” feature for the Always-On Display that will allow apps to show their own minimal, persistent interfaces.
• This enables richer, glanceable experiences, with Google Maps expected to be one of the first apps to use it for low-power navigation.
• The feature uses the same ultra-low-power display state as AOD to save battery and will likely be introduced as a new developer API in Android 17.

Most Android phones have an optional feature called always-on display (AOD) that, as its name implies, keeps your phone’s screen on at all times. This feature is handy because it lets you see the time and new notifications at a glance, though it does drain some extra battery. While Android’s new Live Updates feature lets you see more from certain notifications on the AOD, they can only show so much, forcing you to pick up your phone to get the full picture. To solve this problem, Google is working on a major evolution of the AOD in Android 17 that could allow apps to fully integrate with it.

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Recently, I discovered references to a new Android feature called “Min Mode.” Code for this feature resides in Android’s SystemUI package, which is, quite literally, “everything you see in Android that’s not an app.” SystemUI is a persistent process that provides the UI for a variety of system components, such as the status bar, notifications panel, Quick Settings panel, recents menu, volume panel, lock screen, and, most relevantly, the AOD.




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