Five new features from Android O that we’re excited about

Google took a handful of us by surprise when it announced the next biggest update of Android. Aptly named Android O, this particular update comes with a handful of new features as you would expect. With some of them being extensions of what we have seen on OEM skinned Android smartphones in the past.

More details will be provided during the I/O event in a couple of months from now. As it stands, we barely have an idea of what’s different. Google has also made the update available to download. However, it is recommended to stay away from this unless you have a spare device as an early build is bound to be filled with bugs and other issues.

So what are some of the Android O features that we’re most looking forward to?

All new adaptive icons:

This is something that we’ve seen on Samsung smartphones before, but it’s good to see that it’s making an entry to stock Android as well. Developers have the ability to set adaptive icons which can change depending on the device. The icons will also have all-new animations when displayed in the launcher as well as in other areas of the UI. 

Picture-in-picture mode:

Something that we have seen in a multitude of apps, Google will finally bring PIP or picture-in-picture to Android. This can be used for videos or media applications, allowing third-party developers to officially leverage the feature. It will be interesting to see how this will affect the battery life, but given the kind of enhancements made in this area, we are certain that Google has something planned.

Reducing background tasks:

Google is taking the idea of battery saving further with Android O. By automatically judging what apps are draining the battery in the background, Android will automatically restrict their usage, thus reducing the toll on your phone’s battery life. Google will educate developers on how to build apps based on this. Implicit broadcasts, background services, and location updates are some of the aspects that Google wants to restrict with this new feature.

Notification channels:

This is basically a way to make your notifications window free of clutter and unnecessary junk. By categorizing notifications as per your preferences, you are basically getting the ability to view them individually rather than in bulk. You can adjust the notification for a particular app within the channel without affecting the entire channel. Naturally, the appearance of the notifications window has been slightly changed as well.

New Autofill APIs:

Users of Google Chrome on Android would be aware of the autofill feature which allows you to save some information such as passwords, credit card details etc. Google is now bringing this to the whole system with Android O. This will make your life easy and reduce the need to remember all the passwords and details by memory.

Source: Tech Radar