“We’re doing something a little different this year by releasing the preview early… really early”, Google VP of Engineering writes in a new post to the Android Developers Blog.
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The notification panel is also completely redesigned.
The power-saving feature Doze, introduced in Android Marshmallow to save battery when a device is stationary, in N additionally saves battery whenever the screen turns off.
Users of the iOS can multi-task only on the iPad, but Android N users can multi task on the phones as well as the tablets, and in portrait mode as well as the landscape mode, giving it the edge. Android N is available as an over-the-air update via Google’s new Android Beta Program. Google makes it pretty clear that the preview is not meant for consumers (a consumer trial will be offered later this year). First, developers can choose to bunch together alerts from the same app, enabling users to see them as a bundle and then expand them individually when necessary. Since we’ve discovered from the leaks that the Android N is going to be featuring a dual-screen for your multitasking purposes, we aren’t sure if people are going to be excited over this. “By releasing a “work in progress” build earlier in development, we have more time to incorporate developer feedback”. For this version, Google is releasing an improved version to get more juice out of ever charge hungry phones.
Right now this is only available for developers but Google is planning to make this available to the general public later this year, sometime in Q3 2016. Doze will also activate anytime the screen is off, potentially saving more battery life.
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There are other new features in Android N, including a redesigned Settings menu and a tweaked app-switching interface, but those are the major ones. In fact, Google says install the preview on secondary devices only, as it is still early days and rather buggy. If you’re a developer or an Android enthusiast, you can flash the new OS to your Nexus compatible device or take advantage of the newly launched Android Beta Program. “With Jack, we’re looking forward to tracking the Java language more closely while maintaining backward compatibility”. Since this is still a preview build and not the final software, Google could still opt to change some of this but they may also leave things as they are.
