A dozen days after installing Android 10 on my Pixel 3a, this operating-system update’s major accomplishment has been helping me to chain down a bunch of my apps.

That’s good! The location-privacy improvements in Android 10–starting with the ability to deny an application access to your location when it’s not running in the foreground–more than justify the roughly seven minutes I spent installing this release.

I expected that after seeing Google’s introduction of Android 10, then named Android Q, at Google I/O this May.

But I didn’t know then that Android would actively warn me when individual apps checked my whereabouts when I wasn’t running them, in the form of “[App name] got your location in the background” notifications inviting me to take the background-location keys from that app.

I was already planning on limiting most of the apps on my phone to foreground location access only, but these reminders have sped up that process and helped spotlight the more obvious offenders. (Facebook Messenger, go sit in the corner.) This is an excellent case of Google borrowing from Apple.

There’s much more that’s new in Android 10–if you’re curious and have an hour or so free, Ron Amadeo’s novella-length review at Ars Technica exceeds 2,000 words on the first of nine pages–but its other changes have made less of a difference in my daily use.

• The battery, WiFi and signal-strength icons are now simple outlines, and when swiped down the notifications area shows your remaining battery life in human language instead of a percentage: “1 day, 2 hr.” Less attractive: The text of notifications doesn’t appear in Android’s usual Roboto font, which bugs me to no end.

• The array of icons in the share sheet no longer painstakingly paint their way onto the screen. And the one I employ most often–the copy-to-clipboard icon–always appears first and at the top right of this list.

• The switch to gesture navigation (for instance, swiping up to see all open apps) hasn’t been as confusing as I’d feared… because Android 10 didn’t touch my previous “2-button navigation” system setting, which keeps the back and home buttons one swipe away. I guess I should try the new routine now.

• I still think dark mode is an overrated concept, having had that as my everyday screen environment on too many DOS PCs, but I get that it can be less distracting at night. And on phones with OLED screens, dark modes also extend battery life. So now that dark theme is a supported Android feature–hint, edit your Quick Settings sheet to add a “Dark theme” tile–I would like to see more apps support it. Starting with Google’s own Gmail.

Finally, I have to note that my phone has yet to crash or experience any impaired battery life since updating it to Android 10. I hope I didn’t just jinx this update by writing the preceding sentence.