Android Pie
Android Pie isn't just
another update. It's going to dramatically change how you use your phone, as
Android users are now finding out. Android 9 Pie is now available for Pixel
devices, before it rolls out to other Android phones.
When it reaches yours, you'll find a new whole way to navigate, improved controls and AI-powered recommendations, among other changes.
2 New navigational
gestures
Android
Pie takes a page out of the iPhone X's book by adding more navigational
gestures.
The
home button is now a slim dash, and when you slide up from it, your recent apps
appear with full-screen previews that you can flick through
3 Interactive recent apps
That
new horizontal app switcher gives you more than just full-screen previews of
your recently used apps. It's also a multitasking booster. This Overview mode
now supports Quick Text Selection, meaning you can copy text from one app to
paste in another — helpful if you're jumping back and forth between looking up
something in Chrome and writing an email about your findings to a friend.
4. Smarter battery use
Not
all apps on your phone deserve equal time, and Android Pie wants to make sure
they don't get an equal claim to your smartphone's battery, either. The
Adaptive Battery feature in the new OS decides which apps can draw power based
on the ones you use the most; rarely used apps get limited battery access.
Google claims the feature can reduce CPU app wake-ups by 30 percent, which
should help your phone last longer between charges.
5.
Do Not Disturb
improvements
Want to really put an end to your
phone beeping and buzzing at you when you need to focus? A Shush feature in
Android Pie will automatically enable Do Not Disturb features when you place
your phone face down on the table. That means no pings, vibrations or notifications.
Contacts you've starred will still be able to get through to you in case
there's an emergency.
Better notification management
If there's one app that keeps pinging you with notifications you
unceremoniously dismiss, Android Pie is smart enough to notice. After a while,
you'll be asked if you'd just rather turn off notifications from that
particular app altogether. Long-pressing on the notification takes you directly
to the app's notification settings, in case you want to take notification
management into your own hands.
A smarter display
Batteries aren't the only things
adapting to your usage patterns in Android Pie. Your display will also adjust,
thanks to a new feature coming to the OS. Adaptive Brightness learns how you
like to set the brightness slider on your phone's display given the ambient
conditions. Over time, it learns to make those adjustments for you
automatically, saving you from having to manually change brightness levels.
The search bar's new home
Android Pie's redesign moves the Google search bar to the bottom of the
screen. That way, it's always within reach of your fingers — another
navigational change Google made with an eye toward phones with more-expansive
screens.
Screenshot improvements
Press and hold the power button in
Android Pie, and you'll be able to take a screenshot by tapping the shortcut
that appears on screen. Android Pie also adopts an iOS 11 feature by giving you
quick-edit access to screenshots. Tap an edit button on the screenshot preview,
and markup tools will appear that let you annotate the image to your heart's
delight.
Available earlier to more devices
One welcome change to Android Pie only applies to its public beta, though
we hope it suggests better days ahead with more-timely Android updates. The
Android P preview released in May could be installed on a variety of phones,
including the Essential Phone, Nokia 7 Plus, Xperia XZ2 and OnePlus 6, not to
mention phones from Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi available primarily in Asia.
Previous Android betas had been restricted to Google's own Nexus and Pixel
phones. Could this mean the beginning of the end for Android fragmentation, in
which only a limited number of devices can get the latest version of Android as
it's ready? It's too early to say — especially with the launch of Android Pie
limited to Pixel devices at the moment. But hopefully, we'll see updates arrive
on non-Google phones faster this time around.
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