Android 11 Beta 1 ‘zooms’ your wallpaper when you access notifications

Ben Schoon | Jun 10 2020 - 12:07 pm PT

android 11 homescreen zoom wallpaper animation

Android 11’s first public beta release dropped today and, with it, a handful of really slick new changes. Also, within every release like this Google makes little tweaks and one of those is visible on the homescreen. Now, your wallpaper “zooms” in when accessing notifications on Android 11.

This is admittedly a small change in the grand scheme, but it’s a nice visual touch. If you’re on the homescreen of your device, swiping down to access the notification shade now has a little “zoom” animation for the wallpaper in the background. Specifically, it zooms your wallpaper out. This is a nice little animation because it gives the illusion that your homescreen is fading into the background, so to speak.

Notably, apps aren’t affected by this at all. Rather, it’s only the wallpaper in the background. The speed of the animation is also attached to the notification shade directly. As you swipe, it matches. So, if you swipe slowly, that animation will follow. This same animation also applies to the app drawer and the recents (multitasking) screen.

Again, this new wallpaper zoom animation is a really minor change, but it shows that Google is finally giving a bit more attention to the little details in Android.

We’re still digging through Android 11 Beta 1, so stay tuned for our full coverage! Feel free to ping me on Twitter or drop a comment if you find anything we haven’t covered yet.