Android O – 5 New & 5 Hidden Features Which You Must Know!
Finally Google has released the next big iteration of Android in the form of beta update and it is code named as Android O and it seems like Google is targeting those areas where Android OS really need some improvements.
So let’s have a look over 5 new features and 5 hidden features added to Android O in this beta update.
Excited so let’s get started.
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- Design & UI
So let’s start with the design and UI, one of the biggest aesthetic change that you will find once you will install this update is the redesigned setting menu and notification panel.
In the setting menu now the menus seems to be more sorted and there is no longer any slide-out menu and the categories on the main page of the Settings. There are 13 main headings with short descriptions of what’s inside.
When you swipe down the notification shade you will see the second visual change in android O. Now you have 6 tiles instead of 5 and the colour scheme is also changed towards a white & black tone just like the setting menu. Rather than that at the top right corner you will see the battery indicator which now show battery percentage also. Beside that a new condensed font for the date and time means that information takes up less space, which is fortunate because there are now more status bar icons visible.
- Autofill API
The Autofill APIs introduced with Android O simply try to help apps manage passwords and form data better than in previous versions of Android. The Autofill app stores and secures user data, such as addresses, usernames, and even passwords to the assigned Autofill app. For instance if you open an app like twitter and you want to sign in to your account, now this will automatically show you the suggestion for your user name, once selected it will automatically fill the password and now you are good to go.
- Picture in Picture Mode
Last year Android Nougat introduces picture-in-picture mode which basically shrinks a playing video into a floating window. But at that time this feature was only available for Android TVs but not anymore. Now with this new Android O update you can use this feature on your smartphones also but first you have to enable it because by default it only works with YouTube Red.
So to do that head over to the System UI tuner then navigation bar. Now from here click on extra left button and add a key code after that go back and now here you will find a new option which says left key code click on that and type a 171 and press OK. Now this will basically trigger the secret picture-in-picture window. You can also change the icon according to your preference, once that is done open YouTube and play a video now to shrink the window just press this left icon and boom you have entered in the PIP mode this also works with Google chrome and more app support will be added soon.
- Android Vitals
Android Vitals is a project which is focused on optimizing battery life, start-up time, graphic rendering time, and stability, and it seems like with this project Google is addressing some of the major android issues.
After updating my nexus 6p to this Android O beta program I can really feel the difference in boot time which Google’s claim to be 2 times faster than android Nougat and I think the battery life is also little bit optimised which is a really good this. As of now I can’t say much about the stability because I have faced some minor app crashes so before making any statement let’s wait for its final release.
- Notification dots & Adaptive Icons
Another new feature is notification dots or we should call it app badges, these are basically visual indicators on app icons that’ll show if you have any waiting notifications and ya its look really cool and handy. But as of now this feature is only available on Pixel devices and may be they will add this later on to nexus devices.
Another cool feature is the so called adaptive icons which I think is not that adaptive as it sounds. If you tap and hold the home screen you will get this setting option just click on that and here you will find an option called change icon shapes. Here you can choose from different shaped icons and it will create an overlay of that shape over your icons. The idea behind adaptive icon is very innovative but I think it is not well implemented yet.
So these were the top 5 added features of android O, Now let’s have a look over top hidden features.
- Navigation Bar Mod
If you go through the system UI tuner you will find a new navigation bar option which lets you tweak the layout of your on screen navigation buttons.
But this was not possible in the case of Android Nougat. In Android O you will get layout option that lets you choose between normal, compact, left – leaning and right- leaning which will comes in handy if you want to use your device single handed.
Now you also have the option to add extra left and right buttons on your navigation bar and you can choose from several options like clipboard, key code or keyboard switcher.
- Lock Screen Mod
Now if we take a closer look over the lock screen of android O then you will find that it looks quite similar to android nougat in terms of designs but don’t go with the looks because there are features buried inside System UI tuner.
In the previous versions of android users are not allowed to change the lock screen shortcuts but not anymore with android O now you can change the shortcuts according to your liking. This feature lets you choose either an app or a setting shortcut to show up in the lock screen.
This basically means that now you have the ability to add some useful shortcuts that really make sense. For instance now you can add apps shouts cuts like YouTube, play store, file manager or whatever you like.
- Snooze Notification
Except the cosmetic change android O also include some really cool features like Snooze notification. Just swipe the notification to right and tap this clock icon to snooze the notification. This will make the message go away for 15 minutes, then come right back when the time is up. By default, this is set to 15 minutes but if you tap that down arrow then you’ll be given the option to extend the time in which these notifications are snoozed. So instead of snoozing an Android O notification for 15 minutes, you can also choose to snooze them for 30 minutes, or 60 minutes.
- High-quality Bluetooth Audio Streaming
Google is working with Sony to get the LDAC codec in android O. It means if you have a Bluetooth headphone that supports LDAC then you will get a much improved audio output.
This feature is buried deep inside the developer option, not only LDAC android o also supports other codec like SBC, AAC Aptx and Aptx HD. Additionally there are also options for sample rates, bits per sample and channel mode.
- Inbuilt Cleaner
In Android O now we also have a dedicated junk file cleaner inside the storage setting to clean the unwanted files stored on your device. It will automatically select the unwanted files but if you want to keep any specific file then you can simply do that by unchecking that file.
So guys these were some of the new and hidden features that android O brings to the table hope you guys enjoyed it and if you think we have missed any feature then do let us know that in the comment section.
Android N vs Android O
