Android’s separation between Personal apps and Work apps started with Android 9 Pie back in the day. That separation makes it easier to organise your work apps alongside personal ones. Plus, it allows for more control over when your work apps can send you notifications and what not. With Android 11, Google is making the Personal and Work tabs show up in more places.
This includes the Share Sheet, which will now have both the tabs. Google’s aim with this is to ensure that users share files, photos and videos with people more deliberately. So you won’t accidentally send a file to your colleagues at work instead of your significant other, among other similar advantages.
Other than that, the tabs will show up in Settings when viewing Location, Storage, Accounts, and App Information. Basically, Android 11 will try and make the distinction between work and personal apps visible and useful in more places across the system.
Google is also making some improvements to Work Profiles, and how work apps behave. When your work profile is paused, app icons on the home screen will be grayed out. Moreover, you will no longer need to enter your work passcode every time you toggle Work apps on, if your work passcode is the same as your phone’s passcode. That’s just a neat little usability improvement but it’s something that Android users will likely appreciate a lot.
The company is also trying to make apps like Calendar more unified. The company is bringing along connected work and personal apps, hoping to make some apps (like Calendar) be able to access data from both work and personal profiles. This way, users can see their entire day in the calendar, including events from work profiles and personal events.
