Just a couple of hours ago, Google through its official Android Twitter account just made Android N official. The “N” letter in Android N apparently stands for Nougat, not Nutella that has been echoing around the internet or YouTube for the past few months.
But what exactly will be improved or tweaked on this Android Nougat OS especially compared to predecessor? And what are the new fresh features that will be introduced on this Android Nougat update? What makes this Android Nougat OS better than Lollipop OS?
Today, we have compiled many of new stuff that you are about to enjoy on your Android device of course once it gets updated to Android Nougat OS.
Okay then, without further long introduction, here they go, 12 new features and improvement that have been prepared on the latest and greatest Android Nougat OS.
1. Clear All button on Multitasking/Recent apps screen
On Android Lollipop OS, we usually have to slide the apps that we want to close one by one through the “Recent Apps” screen. And for some people, this can be quite annoying. Luckily, on this new Android Nougat OS, there is a new “Clear All” button which enables you to remove all of the apps on the “Recent Apps” screen in one simple click.
2. Dual-multitasking split-screen Mode
One of the most awaited features on Android Nougat OS is definitely the split-screen mode which allows Android users to open 2 apps on the screen at the same time. This feature actually has been around on some older devices like Samsung GALAXY Note or Samsung GALAXY Tab Pro 8.4 released a couple of years ago.
But now, all of Android users can enjoy this feature on their devices, of course if their smartphones or tablets are eligible for Android Nougat update.
The trick is actually quite simple. And it can be activated using a bunch of methods. So for example, when you’re currently on Chrome browser and you also want to open another app on the same screen, you can simply hold the “Recent Apps” button for a few seconds, and voila… you are entering the split-screen mode.
The screen will automatically be divided in 2 and on the second multitasking screen on the bottom, it will show the “Recent Apps” screen which you can choose any app that you would like to use in the split-screen mode.
In the first beta build of Android N that Google released a couple of months ago, you can actually enter to the split-screen mode right from “Recent Apps” screen by pressing the top bar of any app for a few seconds, and then drag it either on top or bottom in order to put that app in split-screen mode.
The second trick is, you can activate this split-screen mode by pressing the “Recent Apps” button and then slide it to the top.
In this feature, you can also resize the split-screen of both apps by dragging the pointer/border either from top to bottom or the other way around. And if you want to remove any of these apps from the split-screen, you can just drag the pointer away from the screen.
This split-screen feature also works in landscape mode. So whenever you turn your device around in landscape mode, this split-screen mode will automatically turn into landscape mode.
Anyway, a lot of apps probably won’t work properly and need to get tweaked by developers before this Android N actually releases.
3. App switching with double tap on “Recent Apps” button
Besides the split-screen mode, Android Nougat OS also introduces the new trick to switch from one app to another app by pressing “Recent Apps” button twice. Of course, you need to first open more than one app in order for this trick to work.
4. The Night Mode
The Night Mode is also one of the coolest new features being added to Android Nougat OS. With this feature, you can turn the background of all pre-installed apps (like setting, etc) from the standard white into black. Meanwhile, the text will also turn color into white so you’ll able to read the text on the dark background. Anyway, you can activate this feature right away from Setting, go to System UI Tuner, and the Night Mode can be found there.
5. You can reply directly on the pop-up notification
It’s really great if we can reply directly to every message, either text message (SMS) or even email everytime the notification pops up on the screen. And the good news is, now you can have this feature on Android Nougat.
So everytime you want to reply to every new text message or email, you don’t need to go into Gmail or Messaging apps. You can simply type your reply right away on the notification itself. And once you finish with your reply, the notification will disappear from the screen.
You can also set every notification that pops up on the screen in silent mode by pressing down the pop-up notification and select the silent mode. So the next time this specific notification pops up on the screen, you won’t hear any notification ringtone from this message. But you can also block it from your screen permanently if you don’t want to see anymore notification from specific app.
6. Redesigned Notification Window
The notification window has now been redesigned by Google Android team through Nougat update.
So whenever you open the notification trays, a bunch of toggle icons will show up on the top taskbar first. But if you want to open the whole notification window, you must slide it again the second time. This of course will make it easier for us to turn on and off flashlight without opening the whole notification window.
You can also move each toggle to any position you want by dragging the toggle around the notification window. And if you don’t like some of the toggles, you can also remove these toggles and replace them with other ones that you’ll likely use the most.
7. The new “Share”, “Delete” and “Clear All” button on Notification window
The new Android Nougat OS also introduces the new “Share” and “Delete” buttons on notification window, which will show up everytime you receive a message that has more text or content in it.
And there is also the “Clear All” button on the bottom which of course enables you to remove all of the notifications in one simple click, which is really useful if you don’t like seeing too many notifications on the trays.
8. Redesigned Setting app
Google Android team has also redesigned the Setting app on Android Nougat OS by giving more information on every part of the setting.
So for example, when you scroll down to the “Sound” setting, there is the information about the level of sound volume right below the word “Sound”. It goes the same with other settings like Security, Data Usage, etc.
Beside of that, there’s also the new navigation on the left which you can slide open from left to the right directly on Setting app. This left navigation will give you an easy quick access to every part of the Setting page like Security, Sound, etc, without scrolling down the main setting page.
9. Better Doze
Doze has also been improved by Google through this Android Nougat update. So it will of course improve the battery life of our device when we put it inside our pocket.
10. Data Saver
There’s a new feature called “Data Saver” which enables you to restrict each of the apps you have installed on your tablet or smartphone so they will be blocked entirely from using the internet connection on your device. This feature actually has been around since a couple of years ago on some older-gen devices like the Xiaomi Redmi 1S smartphone through MIUI 5 OS. So I think Google is kind of late in the game.
11. New themes on Google stock Android Keyboard
The other new stuff that I like the most from Android Nougat is the ability for us to change the theme of default Google keyboard. You can now pick a bunch of colors like pink, red and even your own photo as the background of the keyboard.
And you can also set the border of every key on the keyboard, which is really awesome. But this border feature actually has been the part of Android Lollipop OS if you choose “Holo White” as the theme of your Google keyboard, instead of “Material Dark”.
12. New and more attractive emoji icons
If you love using emoticons when you’re tweeting on Twitter or chatting with your friend on messaging app, then you’re gonna love what Android Nougat has to offer for you. So in this update, Google has added a plenty of new emoji icons. There are some new professional emoticons like police officer icons, etc that will surely enhance the experience of texting.
Conclusion
So there you go, 12 of the new features that you’re gonna enjoy on Android Nougat when it starts rolling out in the next couple of weeks or months. This Android Nougat OS is actually not such a big change from Android Marshmallow OS. But I think it’s really cool to see some new exciting stuff being added and some features being improved to enhance the experience of using the device itself.
Anyway, besides these 12 new features, on Android Nougat OS, there are actually tons of other new tweaks and improvements found in this update like a more improved performance when the apps launch and run.
Not to mention, games on this Android Nougat OS are also expected to run much better, smoother and the most importantly, consume less power in the battery.
So hopefully, the devices that are eligible to receive Android Nougat OS will show a lot of improvements in performance, multitasking, notification and of course, battery life.