Android 7.0 Nougat just came out a few months ago and it’s still rolling out to a lot of smartphones but that hasn’t stopped Google from unveiling the next version of the popular operating system. Android O was made available as a developer preview. What delectable dessert Android O’s full name will be remains to be seen.
So far, in the current developer preview, we’re given a glimpse of what the new operating system will focus on. Battery life is at the forefront of that focus. We saw the shift to battery life extension with Android 7.0. In Nougat, Android can restrict certain features that applications want to perform while in the background. Android O builds upon this with new limits on implicit broadcasts (sending “signals” for other apps or activities to act upon), background services (activities of an app that continue to run when it’s not on the screen) and location updates (checking to see where you are using Android’s location services). All of these limits are automatically enabled.
Of course, the problem with the automatic limits (which are enabled for nearly all apps) is that they could interfere with the apps function. App developers and Google will want to see how to address that potential issue, either by allowing users to give apps more battery-taxing permissions or by tweaking the apps so that they aren’t demanding updates that frequently.
Furthermore, Android O also introduces notification channels, which are new app-defined categories for notification content. Channels let developers give users fine-grained control over different kinds of notifications — users can block or change the behaviour of each channel individually, rather than managing all of the app’s notifications together.
Adaptive icons are also a new feature; the system animates interactions with the icons and uses them in the launcher, shortcuts, Settings, sharing dialogues, and in the overview screen. The adaptive icons are displayed in different shapes, based on a mask selected by the device. When it comes to customisation, you can expect this to be a popular feature in theme packs.
A slew of other tweaks and features can be read on the Android Developer Blog.
