Google has just confirmed the latest Android version called Android P. This at once dismissed speculation about naming ‘P’ which allegedly alan aan called ‘Pie “. But in fact, Google uses only Android P.
Then what’s new on Android P?
User Experience: Gesture
Android P focuses more on the interface design that is now focussed on the new gesture. Some media mention similar to iPhone X but obviously this is not the same.
You’ll find a small home indicator at the bottom of the screen for you to perform various movements around that part of the screen. For example, the upward movement to return to the homescreen as you would on iPhone X, and to return a dedicated key.
When you do swipe moves in Android P, it will show a new multitasking menu with a large card with information that is easy to read and one more friction open the application drawer. Also, sliding left or right on the home indicator quickly switches between applications.
Digital Wellbeing
According to Google, more than 70% of people want help to better manage digital time on their devices and Google becomes the first company to actually do anything with the system.
With the latest integrated dashboard that handles digital wellbeing, on Android P you will be able to see data like how many times you wake up your phone every day, how many notifications you receive, how much time you spend on various applications and more useful insights to understand how You are using a mobile phone. Understanding your behavior is a good start, and Android P lets users set an application deadline and will remind you when it reaches that time limit.
Another cool new feature that will help you have a break from constant notifications thanks to a feature called “Shush”. Just swivel your phone with the screen facing down and it will enter “Do Not Disturb” mode, turning off vibrations and other distractions. Of course, you can have starry contacts always call you if it’s something important.
And if you are one of those people who look at their phones before going to bed and end up spending hours and interrupting your sleep patterns, Android P brings help with the new “Wind Down” mode. When you set the “Wind Down” mode, your phone screen will automatically turn into night mode and is grayed out, which lessens brain stimulation. This is a simple thing, but Google claims it helps a lot to keep you from distractions before going to bed.
Android Intelligence
Under Android Intelligence, you get many new features that will help you get the most out of your device. Like;
– Adaptive Battery
This feature uses a device learning engine to understand which apps you’re likely to use in the next few hours and which apps might not be used up to a day or week. This Android system can adapt to your unique usage pattern and in practical tests on Google this results in a 30% reduction in CPU wake-up, running more processes on the efficient power of small CPU cores and overall big improvements in battery life.
– New Auto Brightness
Most smartphones today rely on the environment to adjust the brightness of the screen, but that is one approach that is currently being blended flat for all users, while each user has a different brightness preference. With a new feature called “Adaptive brightness”, you can make manual adjustments and the phone will learn your brightness preferences. In this way, users make fewer manual brightness adjustments and have a better and more personalized screen brightness experience.
– Actions
Last year, Android launched a predictive app to show you the five most likely apps you’ll use on the front of the app launcher. Now on Android P, the team at Google adds something called Actions Apps, based on predictions of usage patterns and it’s a shortcut to the things you normally do on your phone. For example, if headphones are connected you get a prompt to start playing music automatically. Or if your phone detects you are in the gym, might suggest you play a music playlist.
– MLKit
MLKit (short for machine learning kit) is a new set of APIs on cross platform devices and will work with Android and iOS. This gives you a ready to use model for things like face recognition, barcode scanning, image labeling, smart replies, spot detection and so on.
Simplicity
Some of the most notable changes for users on Android P are actually the small things that will simplify the user experience.
For example, it’s now easier to adjust the media volume without having to deal with complex voice controls. Simply pressing the volume key down or up now adjusts the media volume by default, as this is what the user wants to change, while for the ringtone will have a button that lets you quickly switch to silent or vibrate mode. All the sliders are also no longer on the top but more accessible on the right side of the phone.
Next screen rotation. Android P has great changes to the rotation function with one very simple change. On Android P, when you rotate the device, it will automatically display a button which you can then manually press to simultaneously rotate the screen. In this way, automatic screen rotation that could be annoying can be really managed in a much easier way.
Source: Phonearena
