ANDROID 8 OREO LATEST NEWS AND FEATURES

Android Nougat was officially released in August 2016, and we've been seeing that a continuous roll-out on Android flagships ever since. One year later, we welcoming

the final version of Android Oreo to the world. The Android 8.0 update's attributes are announced, and the Developer Preview has finally come to a close.

Android Oreo final release date

The live stream video of the eclipse and the big reveal of Android O are both on Google's website. Following the presentation, Android Oreo will first be made available

for the Pixel devices and certain Nexus devices.

Android Oreo features

Some Android O attributes hide beneath the hood, others appear immediately on the surface. Since the former will affect all devices, we will begin with them. The latter are immediately visible with the Nexus and Pixel devices, but are not used by producers in their own UIs and are consequently important, so we will detail them last.

Core features: battery life, updates, security

Hardware support: Hi-Fi via Bluetooth and HDR displays

Surface features: Emoji, notifications and picture-in-picture

Android O core features

Power saving thanks to Android O

Earlier updates thanks to Project Treble

Apps and reboots are faster with Android O

Apps are better thanks to Google Play Protect and tougher enforcement of criteria

Wi-Fi Aware (also known as Neighbor Awareness Networking or NAN)

Auto-fill revolutionizes password management

Bootloop prevention with Rescue Party

Power saving thanks to Android O

To safeguard consumers' battery life and performance, Google has put automatic limits on app background activities in Android O. These background limits will

specifically include implicit broadcasts, desktop services and location updates. For users, this means less energy consumption, and ultimately, longer battery life.

Android O makes it easier to find the apps that have the most battery power. Usually WhatsApp or Facebook find yourself in the list. But just with Android O can you see

if the programs are draining your battery with background activities, or whether they are using battery life when you are in the app.

Earlier updates thanks to Project Treble

With Project Treble, Android O will get a vendor interface. This means that Android will be more modular so that manufacturers may use the seller interface to get the

implementations from internal component vendors, such as Qualcomm and MediaTek, for example. This will allow Android updates to happen easily, as the entire

process can be done independently of these vendor implementations. The idea is to speed up updates from producers by making the process more streamlined.

Project Treble will separate things so updates may occur quickly / © Google

Apps and reboots are faster with Android O

Optimization in the machine must cut device restart time in half and dramatically increase program performance. This is evident from independent reports from XDA and

Android Police.

Apps are better thanks to Google Play Protect and tougher enforcement of criteria

Google Play Protect is a desktop service that will optimize security on Android by analyzing the behavior of apps to detect malware, and remove it from the phone and

from the Play Store.

Google is also increasing pressure on app developers to increase the performance and stability of their apps. If they drop in the bottom 25 percent, they are warned and

subsequently removed from the Play Store if there is no improvement.

Wi-Fi Aware (also known as Neighbor Awareness Networking or NAN)

Wi-Fi Aware (also known as Neighbor Awareness Networking or NAN): This function basically functions so that devices with compatible hardware can communicate

when they're shut, via Wi-Fi Aware, without necessarily having to utilize the internet connection.

Autofill revolutionizes password management

Google is bringing a system-wide Autofill API into Android O, allowing all of your passwords to be handled in a central place. This will definitely mean convenience and

security when logging into apps and filling out forms, since there will not be any need to copy/paste usernames and passwords anymore.

Rescue Party

Another new Android 8.0 attribute has been announced. Rescue Party will help prevent bootloops, one of the most dreaded mobile phone issues. When core system

components are crashing over and over again, Android will notice and take steps to recover the device. This feature will be enabled by default and does not require any

special hardware, although it's just for phones running Android Oreo.

Android O hardware support

• HDR displays are officially supported
• Better Bluetooth support

HDR displays are officially supported

HDR is an interesting feature, however there was little support on the system side. Now, apps can define how to store and display image tools with a wide selection of colors. Google claims this is especially important for image processing programs.

Better Bluetooth support

Android O supports high-quality Bluetooth audio and codecs like LDAC. Sony is helping Google in the development of LDAC audio wireless technologies. According to

the firm, LDAC can transport a volume of data through Bluetooth, with a bit rate of over 990 kbps. There is also AAudio, a new Android native API designed for

applications that require high-performance, low-latency audio quality. Applications which use AAudio save and can read data via stream.

Android O surface features

• Text selection gets smarter
• New round emoji
• Adaptive icons
• Notification channels and dots
• Search and find program info
• Picture in Picture
• Animated clock icon

Text selection gets smarter

Copy/pasting on mobile is going to get easier, and smarter. Using machine learning, Android will recognize when you're trying to copy/paste an address, URL or phone

number and select the thing for you automatically, instead of one word.

New round emoji

 

With this update from Developer Preview 1 to 2, the emoji altered. The newer ones are nearer to the normal circular ones used on most other platforms like iOS and

WhatsApp. This article out of Emojipedia indicates the old ones and new ones in comparison.

Adaptive icons

App icons will adapt automatically to the manufacturer's UI. The visual appeal of program icons differs across the wide range of devices running Android. Thus, a

program icon may seem to be circular in the launcher of one device and square in another. That, obviously, depends on the manufacturer's skin, however, it's cool to see

that Google will now offer a standard for adapting application icons into the UI (if the developer does).

Icons may take different types as indicated on the left.

Notification channels and dots

Once again, Google is bringing changes to notifications with the introduction of Notification Channels and Notification Dots. Notification stations are categories for notifications that give users detailed control over notifications. Change or Block notifications settings not only by app, but by channel or topic. These stations are visually grouped with all the notification color.

Small circles will appear on top of your app icons when you have notifications, and long pressing on them will give you a preview of the notification. This will be standardized in Android O, much like in iOS and various alternative Android launchers.

Widgets are easier to integrate

It's now easier to integrate widgets into your home display. Rather than digging through the alphabetical list of widgets as in previous versions of Android, you can now long press the icon of the app you want a widget for and select one of its available widgets.

Search and find app info

Since Android Lollipop the Settings menu has had a search function. With the update to Android O, a attribute that is new is got by the hunt. App info now appears in the search results for installed programs. You can quickly access a program's Program info menu to quit the app, delete its cache or handle its permissions.

Picture-in-picture

With the newest picture-in-picture mode, multitasking is much easier. You may take an app open or play a video in a window, much like everything you can do in the

YouTube program already, instead of showing it side-by-side with another program in the usual multi-window mode. This way is more flexible, and programs will support

it shortly, including YouTube, Netflix, Maps, Duo and more.

Animated clock icon

Developer Chris Lacy shared some exciting news on his website: in the APK for the Google Clock app from the Android O Beta, he noticed there are hints that Google

will add animation into the Clock icon. The XML file where he found the code proves that the icon will be capable of displaying the current hour, minute and second.

There were also images included which show the different hands of the clock. All these clues point to a brand new animated clock icon to get Android O - much like the

one already present on iOS.