Your Android phone may soon behave differently as soon as you step into a train

Sometimes when you’re on a quiet bus or the metro, you don’t wish to bother anyone with your ringtone blasting at full volume. It can lead to glares. So we have to manually fiddle with volume sliders or toggle Do Not Disturb to avoid being that person.

This problem may be a thing of the past, though. It appears Google is cooking up a way for your phone to know exactly when you are riding public transport and act accordingly.

A new "transiting" mode appears to be in the works

Most modern handsets are already smart enough to know when a car is being driven. Sensors and Bluetooth connections are utilised to figure that out. Once motion is detected, distractions are blocked by the software to keep eyes on the road. Now, we’re getting something similar for public transport as well.

Deep inside the latest Android Canary build, as discovered by Mishaal Rahman at Android Authority, code strings were spotted referencing a new “Transiting” profile.

This seems to build upon the Modes feature that dropped with Android 15 QPR2. While standard versions of those rely on calendar schedules, this looks like it uses onboard sensors as a trigger.

Specifics on what it actually tweaks are still vague. The leaked text simply promises “automatic settings adjustments” for a “smoother” experience. We can speculate, though. Perhaps it restricts which apps can buzz your pocket or switches everything to dark mode.

But there’s also a more interesting angle here. Motion Cues – those visual dots designed to stop you from puking while reading in a moving vehicle – could be tied into this. The transiting profile may automatically trigger the feature.

We will probably have to wait until the Android 16 QPR3 release around March to see if this makes the cut.