While there have been various speculations about the upcoming Android Q, some of which have also been confirmed through a build leak of the OS including system-wide dark mode and enhanced notification settings, the recent rumors about the Android Q might serve as bad news to users. Recent reports suggest that the Android Q may reportedly give more power to mobile carriers as they may get the control to lock down smartphones with their network via SIM cards.
Four commits were posted to various parts of Android’s Gerrit source code management, labeled as “Carrier restriction enhancements for Android Q.” according to 9to5Google. This indicates that reportedly network carriers may gain more authority over which network the phone will work on. Additionally, the report suggested that “it will be possible to designate a list of allowed and excluded carriers, essentially a whitelist and a blacklist of what will and won’t work on a particular phone. This can be done with a fine-grained detail to even allow blocking virtual carrier networks that run on the same towers as your main carrier.”
Putting it simply, currently, mobile carriers have the authority to restrict one SIM slot but with the upcoming Android Q might enable them to restrict both the SIM slots in the device regardless of which network provider SIM you are using in your second slot unless the same SIM is in the other slot too.
Google is expected to launch the next version of Android at Google I/O 2019, which is said to take place in Mountain View, California.
Other than that, a leaked version of the Android Q build was leaked and tested by XDAdevelopers and the build shows some of the major improvements the OS might come with. One key feature of the lot includes a system-wide dark mode which will let users apply dark aesthetics to every aspect of the UI, including notification bar and app drawer. The other feature that is a major improvement from Google is the app permission enhancement, with Android Q, users will be able to select the permissions they would want a particular app to have and restrain the permissions they think the app doesn’t necessarily need to function.
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