What you should know
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- Android 15 will introduce a feature allowing users to check the health of their phone’s storage, similar to how battery health is currently displayed.
- The new storage health feature is based on information from the storage chip itself, specifically designed for UFS (Universal Flash Storage), to show how much life is left in the storage chip in percentage.
- While the feature is under development and might not be available on all Android 15 devices, Google’s Pixel phones are expected to be among the first to support it.
- This storage health metric could be useful for users to decide when to upgrade their phone or to back up data more frequently, and it might become an important factor in the buying or selling process of a smartphone.
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Full Story
Oh, the times are a-changing, aren’t they? It’s not just the battery we’ve got to worry about now. Nope. Google’s stepping up its game, working on something pretty neat for Android 15. They’re planning to let us peek into our phone’s storage health. Yeah, you heard that right. Just stumbled upon this bit of info in a commit for the Android Open Source Project. Kinda like how we check our battery’s health, but this time, it’s all about storage.
So, there was this report by Android Authority earlier this week. They found out about a new API that’s all about keeping tabs on how your storage is holding up. Honestly, until now, figuring out the wear and tear on your phone’s storage was a bit of a mystery. But hey, storage chips get tired too, you know? They can wear out after a while, just like any other piece of hardware.
Here’s the kicker: Android 15 is gonna show us the health of our storage in percentages. Pretty cool, huh? It’s all based on the storage chip’s own data. Most phones these days use UFS (Universal Flash Storage), which keeps track of its own usage. Android 15 will just translate that into something we can easily grasp.
But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This Storage Health feature is still baking in the oven. And it might not pop up on every Android 15 device. That said, Google’s own Pixel phones will probably get first dibs. Once it rolls out, we’ll have a clearer picture of how long our phone’s storage might last before it starts throwing tantrums.
Now, you might be wondering, “Is this a big deal?” For the average Joe and Jane, it’s probably not earth-shattering. Yet, it’s one of those nice-to-know things. If your storage health is going downhill, it could be a nudge to think about getting a new phone. Or at least to back up your stuff more often. Plus, imagine selling your phone. This could be as big a selling point as battery health is for iPhones.
In a nutshell, it’s one more thing to help us keep our digital lives running smoothly. Or at least give us a heads-up before things go south. And in today’s world, that’s not nothing.
