Android 15 could minimize heads-up notifications when you're watching videos

In the iOS versus Android debate, one area where Android generally comes out on top is notifications. However, Android still has some issues to deal with in that regard. For example, heads-up notifications are way too distracting when you’re watching a video or playing a game. Fortunately, Google has a fix in the works for this particular issue, and we could see it go live in an upcoming Android 15 release.

The heads-up notification was introduced nearly a decade ago with the release of Android 5.0 Lollipop. It’s a type of notification that appears in a floating window on the top of the screen that you can immediately see and interact with, no matter what app you’re using. It’s intended only to be used for important notifications that you need to know about immediately, such as messages from a close friend or family member. Notifications of this type can appear when they’re part of a channel with a high importance level or when an app is in fullscreen mode. When a heads-up notification appears over a fullscreen app, it can be quite distracting, which is why many people complain about the feature online and also try to find ways to disable it.

Android already lets you opt out of heads-up notifications on a per-channel basis, but it can be a hassle to do this every time it happens. You can also use ADB to disable heads-up notifications entirely on many Android versions, though you may not want to do this if you’re only bothered by them when they appear over fullscreen apps. Thankfully, Google is working on a new layout for heads-up notifications that makes them less distracting.

While I was digging through the latest Android 15 Beta 4 release, I found references in the SystemUI app to a new “compact” layout for heads-up notifications. With a bit of tinkering, I managed to fully enable the feature. As shown below, heads-up notifications that use the new compact layout take up dramatically less space. Most of the text in the notification is truncated, and any embedded images are hidden by default until you tap the dropdown arrow to expand it. The notification icon, notification title, and reply button are still shown for messaging apps like Telegram.

As I just mentioned, this new compact layout for heads-up notifications is not live yet in Android 15 Beta 4. Given that Beta 4 is the final beta release, it’s unlikely that this change will go live in the initial release of Android 15. It’s possible it’ll go live in one of the upcoming quarterly platform releases (QPRs) of Android 15, or it might even be reserved for next year’s Android 16 update. One thing we’re waiting on is a toggle in the Settings app to control this feature; currently, heads-up notifications are either compact or they’re not, with no way to choose which layout to use by default. Once that’s added in, we see no reason why this can’t be rolled out in one of the three upcoming Android 15 QPRs.