Google’s latest publicly available version of Android mobile and tablet operating system, Android 6.0 Marshmallow, last month finally made it to 1 percent of active devices in five months after its release to Nexus devices. By releasing a “work in progress” build earlier in development, we have more time to incorporate developer feedback.
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You can install the Android N developer preview on a Nexus 5X, 6, 6P, 9, 9G, Player, and the Pixel C. You can also enroll your device in Android’s new beta program, allowing you to upgrade your device using over-the-air updates, so you don’t lose all your data. Bundled notifications allow a developer to group notifications from the same app together which is tidy, bundles are expanded with a two finger tap. Android N takes things a step further by conserving power whenever the screen is turned off. This will chiefly impact developers and apps that are not already optimized for Doze. Google didn’t explain how this API pertains to most apps, but presumably it enables the reply function in the notification shade.
Battery life may be regressed in this release for screen-on and screen-off use cases.
He also noted that Android N release this year is a little different from previous versions that don’t have developers early preview and only happen during the annual developer’s conference in May.
About 36% of Android devices run Lollipop, with fewer than 3% running the newer Marshmallow.
Microsoft may have financially stepped aside from its pursuit of raising antitrust arguments against Google in the European Union, but that doesn’t mean the search engine giant is in the clear. “In Android N, we’re removing three commonly-used implicit broadcasts – Connectivity_Action, Action_New_Picture, and Action_New_Video – since those can wake the background processes of multiple apps at once and strain memory and battery”, Google writes on the Android developers page. We were just as surprised as you were.
The prospect of a July unboxing for the Nexus 2016 handsets was hinted by Google’s confirmation that Android N preview or beta builds will be provided starting this week, BGR reported.
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Okay, how about what’s Android N? Improved Java 8 language support We’re excited to bring Java 8 language features to Android. Google hasn’t specified exactly how this will work just yet, but the interface looks much like Microsoft’s split-screen feature, first introduced in Windows 8.1.
