Google has unveiled a developer preview of the next version of Android, O. As we know the nickname would be codename from a popular dessert meal. This is the second time Google is releasing a developer preview in March.

Google hasn't stated everything​ that would be available in Android O but the company still tend to follow the trend of managing background processes for preserving battery life!

In Android O, Google is really putting a lot of effort in order to minimize battery consumption while not diminishing overall device performance. In Android O, automatic limit to what applications could do in the background in three main areas: implicit broadcasts, background services, and location updates have been added. Battery life improvement is really hard to accomplish but we will see how effective this Google strategy will be.

Another new feature in Android​ O is the introduction of notification channels in which application notifications are now grouped into categories. Users will be able to tweak or change the notification style and behavior of each application right from the notification shade (Android settings) rather than going into the application settings. Android O also adds new visuals and grouping to notifications that make it easier for users to see what's going on when they have an incoming message or are glancing at the notification shade. The Verge also found out that notification could also be snoozed so they could appear at a later time just like emails and alarms.

Developers can now gather up fonts of their choice and use for their applications with ease as Android O now fully support fonts as a resource type. Application​s can now use fonts in XML layouts as well as define font families in XML by declaring the font style and weight along with the font files.

Developers can now create adaptive icons in Android O that the system UI can display in different shapes depending on what home screen theme the user chooses and as a fan of icon packs and device theming I'll say this is pretty big.

Android O will allow users to select an auto fill application of their choice for filling in their login details and other information. This is really handy even for me...I hate repeating something I did earlier, over and over... But hey, who doesn't?!

Google has added a picture in picture mode (PiP) in Android O. The feature is available for both phones and tablets as users can watch a video and at the same time replying a text message from a chat. Application can also put themselves in PiP mode from a resumed state and the aspect ratio can also be specified.

Other new features Android O bags include:
▫ New keyboard navigation especially for the "arrow" and "tab" nav keys.
▫ Android O support for wide color gamut for applications.
▫Full support for high-quality Bluetooth audio codecs such as LDAC codec
▫A new feature called WiFi aware that would allow Android devices to communicate with each other over WiFi without internet access point.
▫Telecom framework extending its VoIP API to allow third party applications communicate with the system UI and interact with other audio applications with ease.
▫AAudio API for pro audio allowing apps that require high-performance, low-latency audio using AAudio read and write data via streams.
▫ In Android O, there's an improvement to chrome's webview that allow apps have multiprocess mode enabled automatically and an extra API that also allow the application handle crashes itself. URLs can also be verified through Google safe browsing to ensure security when visiting websites.
▫ The new Java.time API is now supported by Android O and also some new Java 8 APIs. There's also an improvement of up to 2x on some application benchmarks thanks to the faster Android runtime.

Developers can download the Android O preview [url="https://developer.android.com/preview/download.html"]system image[/url] and manually flash on their devices-Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus Player, Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel C or try it out on an emulator.

SOURCE: http://www.techubng.com/2017/03/google-releases-developer-preview-of-android-o.html

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