At the end of March, Google quietly released a preview of Android O for developers. Although it was a very early build, it revealed quite a few details about the upcoming update. In this article, I will bring together the main innovations that were previously known and those that were found in the same Developer Preview.
Background Process Management
One of the main innovations Android O was the emphasis on optimizing background processes and improving power consumption. The ability to restrict the background activity of installed applications appeared in Nougat, and with the arrival of the updated operating system, the number of restrictions will increase, and some of them will become automatic. Such a mechanism will play into the hands of both developers who can create more optimized and energy-efficient software, and ordinary users who have received smoother device operation and longer battery life.
Categories of notifications
How often do you have a situation when at the end of the day, a countless number of notifications about events of absolutely no interest to you accumulate on your smartphone? If so, by installing a fresh update, you will be able to determine the specific types of notifications you want to receive, and if this is not enough to calm the annoying program / game, you can 'postpone' notifications for a certain period of time and color-coded with a simple click by the corresponding pictogram on the message card.
Wi-Fi NAN
Wi-Fi Neighborhood Awareness Networking is a small innovation based on Wi-Fi Aware technology that will allow gadgets running Android O to automatically find each other and share files even without a shared Wi-Fi connection. Fi network.
New organization of the Settings app
The system settings application has undergone a significant redesign. Due to the new structure, the number of sections on the main page has decreased and the outbound hamburger menu has disappeared.
Autocomplete API
Previously, users Android inevitably had to enter their registration data a new one each time. Now, thanks to the emergence of a unified autofill API, we can forget about this problem – at least in those applications whose developers were not too lazy to use this tool.
Responsive icons
From now on, smartphone manufacturers will have the opportunity to set a single shape for third-party application icons in their devices: icons can be round, square, or have the form of a square with rounded corners.
In addition, the icons will be animated in different ways and will learn to display the number of missed notifications, as in iOS or some Android launchers. Naturally, the requirements for application developers have also been updated.
Professional audio
In Android O, high-quality audio fans will be able to take advantage of codecs such as Qualcomm's aptX HD and Sony's LDAC – these technologies are used to transmit 24-bit audio over Bluetooth (in MP3 files and streaming services, this figure is 16 bits).
Extended color gamut
Application developers for Android O will be able to leverage the full potential of mobile displays that support additional color profiles (such as Adobe RGB, Pro Photo RGB, DCI-P3 and HDR-10 for video). It is no wonder that such features will be in demand primarily by various graphic editors.
Picture-in-picture mode
The function, which Samsung and some developers successfully implemented several years ago, is finally supported in Android at the system level. Well, at the same time, it became possible to run applications on connected displays.
Where, when and for whom
A full presentation is expected at the Google I / O conference in Mountain View, which will run from May 17-19 this year. However, it is already known for sure that three more preliminary versions await us, which will be every month, according to the schedule below. The final release of the final and stable version Android 8.0 will take place in the third quarter of 2017, most likely in August or September.
As for the supported devices, starting with the first Developer Preview, you can download and test the new firmware on Google Pixel, Pixel XL, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Pixel C and Nexus Player. But it is worth considering that this is a very early, full of bugs version, which is not even distributed over Wi-Fi to program participants Android Beta Program. The latter will be able to try out the new one Android next month by downloading the second modification of the Developer Preview over the air.