From their sales point of view, companies like Google are really right when users spend more and more time with their devices and services. For a few years now, however, companies have also created functions in their products that use keywords Digital good, Digital goodness. These are intended to help users better monitor their own cell phone usage, so, for example, they do not feel controlled by their Android phones and their apps with their standard ubiquitous notifications.
With an upcoming innovation in the digital goodness category, however, Google now finds it very useful if the device tells users what they should not do. Starting with the beta version of the upcoming Android 12, aka Android S (the correct name will not be announced yet), the mobile operating system will be given a function called “Cheer up”: if you wish, it will occasionally You should not be prompted use your smartphone while walking and pay attention to the environment.
This can be useful, for example, in terms of potential everyday accidents, for example, if you usually pay more attention to lampposts on cars, passersby or intersections or in pedestrian areas than on WhatsApp and “Candy Crush”. Huh.
“That doesn’t mean you don’t have to be careful in the meantime.”
“Remind not to see your smartphone all the time when you walk,” the function described in the Pixel 4a (5G) menu available on SPIEGEL, on which the beta version is already installed. “But be careful, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to be careful in the meantime.”
One of the first to notice the new feature on their Pixel smartphone was Twitter user Jai Prakash Kamat. He also posted a screenshot of it How can you imagine push notificationsMotivating users to keep their mobile phones away.
A prerequisite for the use of “heads up” is an Android authorization for the topic “physical activities”, Which, according to Google, enables appsFor more information about the number of steps taken by users and physical activities such as walking and cycling. On this basis, “keep your head high” wants to be able to guess whether you are walking or not. Users look at their smartphone directly while running or simply activate it by holding it in their hand, on the other hand, does not matter. Users should not feel that they are being watched.
Alternatively, however, space for the function can also be released so that the software can identify in such a way that one is out or not.
