Android P (9.0) Beta [Everything To Know], API, Features - HTRI

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW (COMPLETE GUIDE): ANDROID P BETA

Android has been upgraded in a different format this year by Google. The update allows you to create more features instead of showing you all the ways you can use.

With an all-new dashboard for the users, due out late this year, the Android P version helps you acknowledge the usage on every phone app you are doing.

The upgrade allows you to set the limits on the app usage. For example, you can set your limit to half an hour for Facebook usage. Once you are done with the set time, the icon will turn its gradient to a dull grayscale.    

‘Digital Well Being’ is the name of the theme that Google has combined with the several features. It is presumed, they didn’t want to keep it ‘Time Well Spent’, the whispered catchphrase channelized by Tristan Harris(ex-Google, ‘design ethicist’) and further borrowed by Mark Zuckerberg.

Also, Android P is believed to come with an interface that uses iPhone like navigation gestures and intelligent ways to access functions that comes inside the app.

This is going to be the biggest change that the users have witnessed in a long time in their phones.

On 11 different phones, it is also available as a public beta. This helps the manufacturers to upgrade their phones in a timely fashion which appears to be quiet an intriguing approach by Google.

There is a lot to handle, seriously!

More then user-facing features, Android Oreo was more about internal changes, last year.  

                                                                 When 'Android O' was launched!

This year’s update, best known as Android P(full-form not revealed yet) is full of features changes. How it actually feels to use it can only be revealed at the end of this year as this is the biggest update in the recent times.

WHAT IS ANDROID P’s REAL NAME - LEAKED? (LATEST FEATURED NEWS)

It is in the air that Google is about to release Android P at some point in next month. This means that the Android P’s real name will be made public very soon. This name is assumed to be themed on a dessert. According to a report in January, internally Google has been calling it Pistachio (an ice-cream; but it went numb with time).

Now, again in a report released by Bloomberg; said Pistachio can be trolling as an internal name for Android P (still not the final name officially released by Google).

But, let’s hope Google makes Android P’s name official soon.

Support your Inner Child With the Parental Control (ANDROID 9.0)

Google wants you to limit your time to control your tech obsessions. Earlier this year, about digital addiction and distractions, Google helped in kicking off the air of stories. These stories metastasized into worries that the social media apps are consuming and hacking our brain strengths.  

VP of product management, Sameer Samat commits that the company has been strengthening on these tools for a long time based on the researches of the user’s.

According to him, Android is the largest user platform consuming around '2 billion users in the world.' He states, we are the OS, and it feels we need to be more creative and perform better. It feels, we have bigger responsibilities and challenges to explore.  

To help you keep your poking you, Android P offers you a handful of new tools varying from subtle modifications to new features which keeps you away from using it literally.

The most astonishing part is the dashboard which enriches you with new vibes and texture on the phone. The dashboard can be taken as an app which provides you with an insane amount of information about your phone usage.

Check, how it actually configures the data:

• Overall per day, how many minutes you have used your phone.

• A number of notifications you have received.

• A pie chart representation showing the time spent on each app that day.

• It breaks down the app usage in hourly fashion.

To get you to have a more relaxing relationship with your phone, this dashboard is a part of a two-step campaign, claimed Samat.

As he speaks, when you use your phone in a day, do you ever think how much you have actually used it today? Or, what time you have spent on a particular app?

Chances are ‘NO’!

This is why the dashboard is designed to give you accurate answers to these questions. Take this as a self-quantified application!

For Samat,

The second step is ‘control’ after ‘awareness.'

                                          Features illustration of Android P 

On your usage, the dashboard set limits. You can set the number of minutes that you want to spend on a particular app. As you are done with your time, a notification pops out stating that you almost ran out of time.

Once you have reached your self-created limit, the app pauses!

A grayscale icon on your home screen appears for a paused app. Even if you tap on the icon, it won’t open in Android P(it states, you have reached your set limit).

Also, don’t have a play option.

Might be, Google adds the unpause option in the later version but with the beta version, Google wanted to test the extreme side seeking users reactions.

It just doesn’t stop here, ‘Wind down’ (a featured option) keeps it going! Just turn it on and tell it when you want to go to bed, the phone will automatically go grayscale at the bedtime.

Also,

DND (do not disturb) will get activated. Leaving no colors, it will work but reminding you that you are breaking your promise to yourself; shut it down & go to sleep!

Talking about DND, Android P will be stricter! It will make sure that there is no notification popping up your screen (they will disappear, literally). They won’t appear on the lock screen, at all!

The only way, the phone will show the display is when somebody calls you.

Isn’t it too strict? :D

Android P Beta (Navigation Bar Changes) at its extreme to turn off your Notifications!

Samat says we are trying new gestures with this version. In case, the phone is sitting faceup and you uplift it, DND will be activated automatically(happens only when sitting on a table).

Also, Read: Microsoft Up for the Battle | New Xbox One X Vs PlayStation Console

DND mode will not appear in the same scenario if you are carrying it!

To further limit distractions, Google is also iterating the way notifications work in Android P. Already, Google gives you ample ways to check or uncheck the notifications. With Android P, it becomes easier.

Android P update will keep an eye on the notifications that you are swiping every day.

It makes sure, after a while, when you swiped a notification from a particular app for ample times, it will give you a tiny pop up stating would you like to disable notifications from the app.

To make it better, there is a new ‘Manage Notifications’ button on the notification tray, tap!! You will be taken to a screen that shows your app notifications preferences(how recently you will be notified).

Also, you can sort the apps which send you most notifications.

For the corporate users, there is even a better option to reduce distractions. From your regular apps, it is possible on an Android device to configure separate ‘work apps’. On the app drawer, these apps are separated out into different tabs.

To disable them, there is a toggle switch at the bottom. Henceforth, when you go on a vacation, you can take a holiday from your work apps without fussing about turning off the notifications one by one.

Hence,

Dashboard! Wind down! New DND (Do Not Disturb) Settings! New ways to turn off notifications!

Altogether, are multiple ways against your phone demanding the attention.

Does it draw our attention towards a question:

Is Google not worried about how the third party developers would so easily take these restrictions to their apps?  

Samat claims; we talked our way out to these developers and the feedback has been somehow positive! ‘The concept of user engagement is turning to meaningful engagement.’

** GESTURAL NAVIGATION(THE - FIGURE IT OUT) **

The core navigation of the phone is completely revamped by Android P. You can still tap on the home button to go home. Don’t panic - there still a back button within the apps but ‘Android user engagement is going to change in many folds.

Google is changing the feel and essence of the home button behavior on Android P. Now, you will be swiping up to go to an overview of open apps and further, swipe up to scroll the complete app tray.

Hence, no longer leaving a multitasking square button; it only shows up in the apps.

Dave Burke (VP of engineering ‘Android’) commits that the changes to navigation on Android were made in the name of ‘making Android more simpler but indeed approachable.’

Check: Posts Related to Android

It can be taken as a counterintuitive approach to appreciating the new system. Typically, the way we think about the UI is to have a button to tap rather some gesture(which is difficult to remember).

What we realized it, swiping is not that weird or difficult than tapping. In Fact, it’s a matter of seconds that you get used to it! When compared, iOS has always been a lot easier than Android when it comes to the OS[Operating System].

Also, we can’t even say that gestural navigation is any newer to Android. In case, if you have got your hands on iPhone X - then it similar to how the system works but comes with a few key changes. For more familiarity, use a webOS phone.

To conclude, there are already a few Android phones which work on something similar to Android P.

How Does It Feel?

I don’t care about what anyone thinks or if the new gesture navigation is inspired or borrowed. More importantly, benefits were undeniable when I learned about how Android P actually performs.

The system felt completely intuitive. Though, it took me a minute to figure out the difference between half-swipe and full-swipe.  

These gestures work all the time, no matter where you are. You get instant access to both the app drawer and the overview screen at all times.

In case, if you look forward to switching an app quickly, the advanced gesture of sliding the home button works wonderfully allowing you to jump instantly to the last-used app.

Overall,

the overview screen is particularly useful. We all might not like thumbnails on the screen but at times, they are useful. This should make all of us super happy that now there is a universal and quick way to bring a typing search bar on Android again.

A bunch of little things has been tweaked beyond the core navigation. To show a rotate button, Android P sometimes uses that space. In case you rotate your phone, it shows up the screen is locked in portrait mode. Without changing the global setting, tap it and quickly the video will appear in widescreen.

You can directly annotate images before saving or sharing the images by the screenshot tool, as rumored. When you hold the power button down(in case, you hate the [volume + power] combination), a screenshot button pops out. To be honest, the new volume button behavior is not that catchy!

This time,

The volume button defaults to adjusting media volume, showing a toggle to switch the ringer button vibrate, silent and on.

On many phones, there won’t be a hardware-based to put your phone on silent quickly. Instead of just holding down the volume button, you will have to tap the screen.

Every year,

As Google does, they are darting about the quick setting menu. Let see how it goes this time.  As known, this time the icon will be blue and doesn’t have a drop-down underneath them.

When you tap on the toggles functions on and off or press them for long, they jump to more settings - this time!

At Powering the UI with the AI - Another Crack By Google!!

What we believed earlier as well, Google is desperate to build something similar to Star Trek Computer(where the User Interface is constituted and informed of Artificial Intelligence).

Our team feels we are closer than ever!

In 2012 - Google Launched ‘Google Now’(for predictive content)

In 2016 - ‘Google Assistant’ was created.

To consider, ‘Closer’ would be a broader dimension. Realistically, Google has taken few baby steps forward along with two or three back. To pick an example, As in Android, Google has ended up the buried submenu because of the predictive results(they never ended being useful).

Google is still trying hard to use its skills in the AI in Android P. As well in the machine learning, so as to make Android smarter and impressive.

Burke says, ‘Day by day we are getting better at matching and applying the AI with Machine Learning to different problems.’

Demonstrating a few examples:

For better battery management, in order to add the AI, the Android team shook hands with “DeepMind - an entity of Alphabet”. Henceforth, the phone will keep an eye on the applications(Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram) you launch(when and for how long) to shut down apps in the background (thinking you aren’t likely to open it anytime sooner).

                                                    Google AI - Sundar Pichai                                      

Also, it will somehow do something to the phone’s brightness in order to observe for your behavior towards adaptive brightness. Eventually, matching with your habits.

However, there are more slight UI changes in Google’s algorithm. Google is addressing the developers to a couple of terms such as ‘Slices’ and ‘Actions.’

In other parts of the OS, they are essentially the deep links into apps that are able to surface the algo.  

On Google Assistant; Actions are taken to be analogous to Actions whereas when you type out a global search on the phone, subsets that can show the app’s its own UI are termed to be Slices.

Hopefully, arcana deep links and Slices will not be required by the users. Instead, a user will look up to the smartness of Android P; to avoid the hunting down of app icons.

Taking an example, the app drawer has one more section which is yet to mention. The predictive app row is two buttons(another AI drove interface). Certain stuff that you might want to do such as texting a friend or reordering food from some app putting a direct link.

This can be taken as a similarity to what already exists in the Android, updating standards in 2018. In Google Assistant, launcher, on the home screen or even at Google Play Store; actions can appear anywhere.

But, when Sliced is discussed, they appear differently. As of now, they will only appear while doing a search on the phone. For an instance, when you type ‘Lyft’, some of the search results will be shown from the deep search from the ‘Lyft App’.

A button will be shown to call a lift taking you directly to your destination (with complete app icons and designs).

To break out various pieces of the app used in the bigger OS; is the main idea behind both the concepts. Sameer calls it the ‘decomposition of these apps’ but without a meaningful death.

Haha,

Do you want to go the app? Really?

No, Instead you desire to go back to your home or reorder, he says!

To make both Actions and Slices made available to the system, developers need to create a framework for their apps. When done, the Android P AI will simply diagnose the app in order to tell you what exactly you need out of it.  

When you modify the app, it is just not the API but also the components that can be understood - predicted - rendered by the system, claims Samat!

Especially, for developers, Google has created a framework; MLKit. This enables the developers to introduce machine learning into their specific apps. Allowing these apps to work in conjunction or locally with cloud services - operating both on Android and iOS.

Android Updates - The Treble!

The ghost of Android release is already quite popular but everybody knows that it going to take months and around a year when most of the phones get it. And, to fix that problem, every year, Google comes up with different strategies.

According to the theory, the core Android underpinnings could be updated keeping the top of the skin separate - speeding up on the updates. Other parts, at the initial stages, working with the chipmakers in the development process. This way, Google can help the manufacturer's to release the updates better and faster.

The better state than ever - Android Updates (Praise Applauded)

One sign is particularly shown this year, the technical fix is working much better than it was expected. The public beta version of Android P is readily available but it is coming on seven different Android third-party devices.

On regular basis, betas are expected to be launched on Google’s Pixel or Nexus phones. If earlier betas are any indication, Android P updates might get released sooner than before.

Also, if you are counting the XL version of the Pixels; it is actually 11 different Android phones with the beta.

For a fun fact,

Sources discovered that after receiving a build f Android P a month ago(on a Friday), PH-1 was working with this beta by Monday.

Now, when Treble almost happens to be the new customization arena, it becomes much easier for the manufacturers to update the new beta.

Adding up to the list of fun facts,

The biggest manufacturer isn’t listed here; Samsung. As pointed out by an optimistic; Samsung eligible Silicon team is working closely with Google in the new Treble framework. Hence, it leaves no reason to be scared about the want of Galaxy phones presenting the beta.

For a pessimist; he might comment, ‘betas may be nice and all but we should assume the worst probably(given the history).

Also, Read: Intel creates a fantasy, whereas AMD makes people believe!

This leaves our team in the middle! Even if Treble works perfectly(as gossiped), there is no hope that Android will be updated as frequently as the iPhones.

In a timely fashion, how many devices can actually get Android P? As things can change, we would not like to give out a precise figure, speaks Bruke. By the end of the year, Android P will gain a high number of teenage audiences; as expected.

Based on an hour or two of poking around with Android P beta, it will be too early to pass a judgment on the success or quality of Android P.

But, it would not be too early to say that Android P indeed is the biggest change, transformation and update in the world of Android by Google.

Completely depending upon the core navigation of the OS, Google is taking on the problem of digital distraction.

Also, the stuff we want to accomplish within apps into the OS, Google team is working very hard to break it out. And, to top it all, in the earlier developer preview, we have already witnessed the visual changes.    

Overall,

We may not understand and value the changes that Android P has to offer but we cannot deny the impactful new update foundation laid by Google.

It is clear that Google needs time to get all these functionalities in the update and turn it into a reality. Also, released on phones, not on the device called ‘Pixel’. If this turns out to be real, then for us Android P will no longer be virtual but will stand ‘Conclusive’.

Let's review some Frequently Asked Questions! 

Q.1. What is Android P?

A.1. Android P(officially Android 9) is the latest update by Google following the last release of Oreo 8. Everything you need to know about Android P is extensively described in the article.

Q.2. Who is Dave Burke?

A.2. Dave Burke is the VP Engineering for Android at Google. He is playing a major role in accumulating the latest update, ‘Android P’.

Q.3. When is Android P releasing?

A.3. As known, Android P is the 9th version of the Android OS. As announced by Google, the first release was made on 7th March 2018, the second beta came out on 8th May 2018. Alongside, the third preview followed on 6th June 2018.

Q.4. What are the key features of Android P?

A.4. Follow the article to know each and every feature of Android P update.

Let us catch a quick glimpse of the differences between Android P and Android Oreo! 

                                Android P vs Android Oreo - Comparision! 

This is all!