Android O vs Android Nougat: What Has

Changed?

Googles latest update to Android has arrived in the form of an early

Developer Preview, and like always, were excited. To no ones
surprise, the latest iteration of Android is being called Android O
(Oreo? Hopefully!), and it brings with it quite a lot of changes. The
Developer Preview is only available on the Nexus, and Pixel devices,
so if you cant get your hands on it yet, and want to know about all the
changes you can expect from Android O, weve got you covered.
We are pitting Android O vs Android N, and here are all the
changes you should know about:

Android O vs Android N: All The Changes

1. Notifications

Google has been making changes to the way notifications behave in

Android ever since Marshmallow, and Android O is no different.
Android O looks to improve upon every good thing Android Nougat
brought along, and then some. With Android O, were
getting Notification Channels, which are basically categories that
an app can classify its notifications into. This means that instead of
having to change notification settings for an entire app, users will now
get even more fine-grained control over the kinds of notifications
they want.
Notifications can also be snoozed in Android O, and this really
does look like a good feature. Users will be able to simply swipe a
notification, and tap on the snooze icon to snooze the notification for
a default time of 15 minutes. This can be extended (at least in the
current Developer Preview) to a maximum of 1 hour. Personally, Id
like to have some sort of custom time here, the way Inbox handles
snoozing emails, but this is just the first Developer Preview, so theres
a lot of time for that.
Theres also a minor change in the way the Notification Shade behaves
on Android O. While double swiping on the Status Bar in Android
Nougat used to hide some of the lower notifications in order to
properly display the Quick Settings panel, Android O converts
them into small app icons on the bottom of the Notification
Shade instead. So while the Quick Settings panel gets displayed
properly, youll still be able to see the apps that have pending
notifications, without having to swipe back up.
2. Quick Settings

Speaking of Quick Settings, theres a little bit of change in the way the
Quick Settings panel behaves. In Android Nougat, tapping on the
icons for WiFi, Bluetooth, etc. would open up the
expandable Quick Settings for that particular item, but in
Android O, this works very differently. If you tap on the icons for
things like WiFi, Bluetooth, etc, itll simply toggle them on/off.
However, if you tap on the text beneath these items, itll take you to
the expandable Quick Settings for the item.
While this is definitely a change thatll take some time getting used to,
eventually it does save us a tap, if we simply want to toggle WiFi, or
Bluetooth on, as in Android Nougat, wed have to tap on the icon to go
into the expandable Quick Settings, and then toggle WiFi. In Android
O, we can simply tap on the WiFi icon to toggle it on or off.

3. Built-in File Manager

Android has had a pretty well rounded, albeit hidden, built-in file
manager for quite some time now, and while previously it could
be accessed from the Storage screen in Settings, it now has
its own icon in the App Drawer. In Android Nougat, there was
only a Downloads icon in the App Drawer, but this has been replaced
by the Files icon in Android O.
You still get the option to go to Downloads inside the Files app, and
the sorting options are much more easily visible in the new app, as
compared to the hidden File Manager in Android Nougat. If you need
a file for basic file management, this File Manager should work just
fine for you. For more powerful File Managers, Android has quite a lot
of options to go with.

4. Settings Page

More from essential changes in every Android version ever, the

Settings page is seeing another overhaul, and it looks like
the slide-over panel from Android Nougat didnt go down well with
the designers over at Google, because it has been booted from the
Developer Preview of Android O. Also, the Settings page now opts
to aggressively categorize items into broader categories, which
results in a much shorter top list in the Settings list.
The monochrome theme that takes centerstage here actually looks
rather nice, and while the new organisation of options will definitely
take some time to get used to, I think its a good step towards a more
organised Settings screen. Even if its not, were all going to use the
search option, anyway.

5. Picture in Picture

Picture in Picture was first introduced in Android Nougat, but it was

only made available for Android TVs, but, thanks to the lack of
Android TVs being used (at least as compared to the number of
Android phones), there has always been a lack of third party support
for the feature. With Android O, Google is bringing the feature to
phones and tablets, and this will hopefully get developers on-board
with it as well.
Im looking forward to many more apps allowing Picture in Picture
mode, so I can watch my favourite videos, and browse Reddit at the
same time.

6. Custom Lock Screen Shortcuts

Lets be honest, how many times did you use those shortcuts on the
lock screen? If youre wondering what shortcuts Im talking about, it
just goes to prove my point. However, the reason most people didnt
use them on stock Android Nougat, is because they performed
functions that could be accessed more effortlessly through other
methods. With Android O, Google is offering users the ability to add
custom apps to those shortcuts, making them actually useful.
You can now add things like Directions to Home, Compose New
Email, and more to the lock screen shortcuts, making actions you
take often much easier to accomplish.

7. Customizable Navigation Bar

With Android O, users will also the ability to customize

the Navigation Bar, something that was only possible with Custom
ROMs on previous versions of Android, such as Android Nougat.
While doing this will require to enable System UI Tuner, it can be
done rather easily. Android O gives users the option to add buttons
to the Navigation Bar, including things like a left and right arrow,
and more.

Also, Android O adds the ability to adjust the positioning of the

Navigation Bar buttons; users can make them lean to the left, to the
right, or the buttons can be squeezed closer together in the centre part
of the Navigation Bar.

8. Ambient Display

The Ambient Display has also undergone quite a lot of changes in

Android O. Whereas in Android Nougat, Ambient Display used to
display very detailed notifications, Android O opts for a
much cleaner, and less battery intensive use of the Ambient
Display. Notifications on the Ambient Display are now displayed as
small icons, displayed side by side on a narrow bar. The icons are
almost too small, and thisll obviously use much less battery power,
tapping on the narrow bar (and two taps, at that), is a little difficult.

In more welcome changes to the Ambient Display, incoming

notifications are displayed in a much more rich manner, with options
to reply, archive (for Gmail), and more, depending on the notification
actions supported by the app. This is in contrast to Android Nougat,
where, even though the notifications showed quite a bit of detail, they
didnt offer quick actions to the users.

9. Adaptive Icons

Another change that Android O brings, is also one that hints at bigger
and better things to comeprobably. Google announced support for
Adaptive Icons in Android O, and while they are not yet supported by
any apps in the Developer Preview, their description is promising,
albeit vague. From Googles announcement Adaptive Icons [are
icons] that the system displays in different shapes, based on a mask
selected by the device. The system also animates interactions with the
icons, and uses them in the launcher, shortcuts, Settings, sharing
dialogs, and in the overview screen.
Basically, every app that supports Adaptive Icons will be able
to adapt its icon to the theme selected by the user, so if youre
using a theme with rounded icons, all the icons on your device will be
displayed as round icons only no discontinuities whatsoever. An
announcement such as this makes it sound like theming could
become a much more deeply integrated part of the Android
environment, a thought that is helped along by the Device Theme
option that is available inside the Display settings of Pixel devices in
the Android O Developer Preview.

10. Installing Apps from External

Sources

Android has always been liberal about where a user gets apps from.
Unlike its competition (iOS), Android allows users to install apps
from anywhere, as long as users enable the Unknown Sources
option in Security Settings. In Android Nougat, as long as you enabled
the setting to allow installation of apps from unknown sources, you
could basically download apps from the internet, get APKs via
Bluetooth, or install them using ES File Explorer. However, in
Android O, youll have to grant permission for each and every source,
individually.

This means a bit more work, but will also end up ensuring that apps
dont install other apps on their own, making your device a little more
secure than it already is. So a little extra work, for some added
security doesnt sound like a bad deal.

11. Battery Optimization

Android has always been working hard to improve the battery life it
can squeeze out of your device. Even with batteries getting bigger and
bigger, users are still looking for more, and this can only be
accomplished when good hardware is being used by exceptionally
optimized software. With Android O, Google is looking to further the
improvements it made in battery optimizations in Android Nougat.

The Doze feature, which was first introduced in Android

Marshmallow, and improved further in Android Nougat, is becoming
even more aggressive in Android O, with even more
restrictions placed on things that apps can do in the background,
and the frequency at which they can do them. Android O places
much stricter restrictions on apps asking for location
updates, registering implicit broadcasts, and running background
services. While we cant really judge the difference this is making,
since its a Developer Preview, we can certainly hope that it works as
well as Google is telling us it will.

12. Changes to App Behaviour

In Android O, changes are also being made to the way apps behave,
and the kind of interactions they can support. Since Android apps are
now available on Chrome OS, Google has announced support
for much more reliable, and predictable keyboard
navigation model in apps. Also, unlike in Android Nougat, apps in
Android O can now use custom pop-up windows, instead of the
standard System Alert box. This could be a potentially good feature,
but Im sure itll be abused by poorly designed apps, and might
actually end up resulting in a bad UX. I sure hope not though, because
properly implemented, custom pop-up boxes could make apps even
more attractive, and fun to use than ever before.

13. Minor UI Changes

Apart from these major changes, Android O also changes quite a lot of
UI items, when compared to Android Nougat. The Navigation Bar,
for instance, turns dark, when the Pixel Launcher app drawer is slid
up, and it looks much better than what it did back in Android Nougat.
Also, speaking of the app drawer, it can now be brought up by sliding
up anywhere on the home screen, which is definitely easier, and
much more intuitive.

he Status Bar in Android O is much more information dense,

and makes up for this by employing cleaner, and lighter date and time
fonts (which, admittedly, look good). Also, unlike in Android Nougat,
you cant get the battery percentage to show up inside the
battery icon itself, its placed beside the battery icon only. Another
key difference from Android Nougat, is that while in Android 7, the
battery icon shifted to the Quick Settings page, Android O keeps it in
the Status Bar, and chooses to display only a toggle for Battery
Saver in the Quick Settings, which ends up saving users a tap to
enable that option, so Im not exactly complaining.

The option to edit the Quick Settings panel is also directly

available in the Status Bar itself, making it easier to customise the
Quick Settings panel, but also cluttering up the Status Bar quite a bit.
Seeing that customising the Quick Settings panel is not something
people do very often, this seems like a bit of an overkill.

14. Other Android O Changes

Other changes, or changes that normal users wouldnt really care

about, and developers probably will, are also abundant in Android O.
First off, Android O brings support for Autofill APIs. This will
allow apps to ask users to register them as the official (default) autofill
app on their device, so they can automatically fill up information that
users enter often. Android O also announces support for a wider
colour gamut, so that apps that deal with photos, and videos
(usually editing applications), can make use of the increasingly
amazing screens were seeing on flagships these days, and provide a
better experience to users.

WebViews will also use multiprocess rendering as a default.

This was available as an option in Android Nougat, but by making it a
default in Android O, Google is aiming to make apps using
WebViews load content faster, and be able to handle crashes
themselves, making them much more reliable. Also, apps will be able
to use Googles Safe Browsing verification, so that users can
remain protected against malicious websites.

Android O also improves the Android Runtime, making it

upto 2 times fasterthan it was back in Android Nougat. Along with
that, Android O brings Network Aware Networking to Android
devices, a term that basically means that Android devices will be able
to communicate with each other over a WiFi network, even if the
network isnt connected to the internet.

ANDROIDARENA4U

BLOG WRITER- RA SHUKLA