A New Era for Android: What's Changed and What to Expect

The latest developer preview of Android brings a plethora of exciting changes that promise to revolutionize the way we interact with our phones. From redesigned Quick Settings to a new multitasking system, there are plenty of features that will make you wonder how you ever lived without them.

One of the most noticeable changes is the redesigned Quick Settings panel, which allows users to access frequently used functions like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth with just one pull-down. This new design offers a more streamlined experience, with quick toggles and a clear layout that makes it easy to find what you need. The panel is also paginated, allowing users to swipe through different screens as needed. A new edit button at the top of the screen provides even greater customization options, enabling users to rearrange settings to suit their needs.

Another significant change is the revamped multitasking system, which boasts a range of improvements that make it easier and more intuitive than ever before. The multitasking cards are now larger, providing more information about the app being used, including its last used state. This means you can easily see what's been open most recently and quickly switch between apps to find what you need. One of the standout features is the double-tap gesture, which acts like a quick app switcher, allowing users to quickly swap between two frequently used apps.

But that's not all - Android now also supports split-screen multitasking, making it easy to work on multiple tasks at once. When using this feature, users can resize the multitasking windows or close one out entirely by swiping along the bottom bar. This is a game-changer for productivity and multitasking enthusiasts alike.

Finally, there's the introduction of a functional dark mode in Android, which reverses the colors in major core apps like Settings to create a more readable interface at night or in low-light environments. While it's not immediately accessible from the system settings menu, users can access this feature through the System Tuner and customize their experience accordingly.

Other notable changes include improvements to doze mode, which should help save battery life when the phone is in a pocket, and data saver mode, which helps conserve data usage when you know you're about to run out. While these features may seem minor compared to the bigger picture, they demonstrate Google's commitment to refining the Android experience.

One interesting tidbit from this developer preview is that some apps are already supporting inline replies in notifications, allowing users to quickly respond to messages without leaving the notification panel. This feature is particularly useful for services like Hangouts, which will soon support direct replies within notifications.

As we move forward with Android N, it's clear that Google has put a lot of thought into creating an experience that's both intuitive and customizable. With its focus on multitasking, quick access to frequently used functions, and sleek design elements, this developer preview is shaping up to be one of the most exciting iterations in Android history.

Whether you're a seasoned Android user or just exploring the platform for the first time, there's never been a better time to experience all that Android has to offer. So, what do you think? Are there any features from this developer preview that have caught your eye? Share your thoughts and opinions with us in the comments below!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what is up guys MKBHD here and yeah I know what you're thinking most people don't even have Android M yet and yet we're already getting a preview of the next version yep it's earlier than normal this year before Google iio and everything and it's loaded on this Nexus 6p so let's take a look at the best new features in Android n so it's going to be a lot of smaller stuff first of all there's no version number that I can see but it feels like this is going to be something like and Android 6.1 a lot of what you'll see here is redesigns so number one a redesigned Settings app so you can see it looks pretty similar to the marshmallow Settings app but in each category it's starting to take advantage of the larger screens these phones have and it's showing you a little information inside it before you have to click it so with battery without clicking it tells you how much battery you have left storage tells you how much space you have open wi-fi and Bluetooth tell you what you're connected to before you even open the setting so that's pretty cool and then you have when you do click into a setting you get a new option which is a swipe out side menu with links to all the other settings so you can use this bar to sort of navigate between submenus if you know where you want to go and it's pretty quick I don't know if this actually saves any steps as far as the number of clicks but it works well and you can kind of memorize where your most used settings are on the list so you can definitely get to them pretty quickly this way I actually like the way it looks in landscape I don't use my phone in landscape that much but it looks like the settings from Android Honeycomb back in the old tablet days taking advantage of the bigger screen all right number two is redesigned notifications so you can see your notifications are a bit wider now they take up the whole width of the display and they show a lot more information now again really taking advantage of the bigger high-res displays we have and you can tap the little down arrow to expand or contract notifications or you can stick to the two-finger drag which is a lot easier to get that more information and then some apps like first- party apps like Gmail will let you expand so much that you can actually take individual action on each item so notifications are bundled as they come in but once you expand it you can archive emails like one by one or pick a single email to take an action on like a reply and I think more apps will start to pick this up too so if you get like three Twitter notifications you can choose what to do with each one after you expand so I like this and you also now have a half swipe over to get to notification settings for that app uh I kind of liked the long press better but that's how you do it now and some apps will support inline replies in the notifications so like Hangouts for example the new Hangouts app will let you reply to a message without ever leaving the notification panel and then get back to what you're doing again a lot of this stuff is new functionality to take advantage of your bigger screens I like it so number three is redesigned Quick Settings up top this is something we've seen in skin versions of Android before actually so HTC Sense TouchWiz but now you can just pull down once and have these quick toggles to frequently Ed functions like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or your flashlight or whatever when you pull down again that's when you get to your quick settings at your you're familiar with with the bigger panel and it's paginated so you can swipe across between screens as many as you want here and there's also a new edit button right up front so you can go in there and move stuff around move stuff in move stuff out move stuff into the top five so that it becomes a quick setting Etc so this is classic Android full-on customization fun you can really set the most used functions right up top to be at your fingertips number four is a redesigned multitasking so this is definitely my new favorite change in Android n so right off the bat the multitasking cards are way bigger so it lets you see more info in your last used app on the screen which is pretty cool and then when you're in an app and you hit the multitasking button it brings the app you're in way down to the bottom because you don't don't want to go back into that same app I've done that by accident a lot so now when you hit the button it just gets out the way and shows you a big card of your second to last most used app so now what it gets right is one of my favorite editions which is the double tap it kind of acts like a quick app switcher and swaps back with your most recently used used app I think it's awesome it's handy for quick copy paste stuff or just going back and forth between two apps you use a lot like Twitter and Reddit and back to Twitter whatever you're doing it's pretty handy and then new to stock Android we now have split screen multitasking so when you're in an app you hold the multitasking button then pick another app and then you're in and this is awesome uh we again used to only see this in skins but now you can grab the bar in the middle and resize the multitasking windows or use the bar to close one out entirely I got to say for a developer preview this is really smooth like I didn't expect it to be this good at all but it's nice and stable and it works works in landscape too so I'm hoping I'm hoping that a bunch of apps now that this is in the developer preview will quickly support this in a few months down the road so we get this new version early app developers get to build it in and then when the new version of Android comes out like a new Nexus almost everyone's apps already works with split screen all right number five last but not least is the dark mode it was kind of buried in the last Android M developer preview but again we have a functional night mode in Android which essentially reverses the colors in a major core apps like settings to be dark Behind the Green which can be useful if you're using your phone at night or at someplace where you don't want it to blast light everywhere uh it still is in system tuner so you don't exactly have it at your fingertips but you do get to dig in and mess around with it and it even has a feature to automatically turn on at Sunset kind of like the night mode in Google Maps nice so there you have it there's a bunch of other little stuff here and there like an improved doze that should even work to help save battery life when the phone is in your pocket and there's also a data saver mode so when you just know you're going to run out of data you can kind of keep your phone in check there but that's the best of what's new in Android n so far again it's just a developer preview number one so more changes and features will be added before the final version this summer yes the app drawer is still here looks like we're keeping that but let me know what you think what's your favorite new item personally I'm all about that double tap app switcher but that's just me thanks for watching and I'll talk to you guys in the next one peacehey what is up guys MKBHD here and yeah I know what you're thinking most people don't even have Android M yet and yet we're already getting a preview of the next version yep it's earlier than normal this year before Google iio and everything and it's loaded on this Nexus 6p so let's take a look at the best new features in Android n so it's going to be a lot of smaller stuff first of all there's no version number that I can see but it feels like this is going to be something like and Android 6.1 a lot of what you'll see here is redesigns so number one a redesigned Settings app so you can see it looks pretty similar to the marshmallow Settings app but in each category it's starting to take advantage of the larger screens these phones have and it's showing you a little information inside it before you have to click it so with battery without clicking it tells you how much battery you have left storage tells you how much space you have open wi-fi and Bluetooth tell you what you're connected to before you even open the setting so that's pretty cool and then you have when you do click into a setting you get a new option which is a swipe out side menu with links to all the other settings so you can use this bar to sort of navigate between submenus if you know where you want to go and it's pretty quick I don't know if this actually saves any steps as far as the number of clicks but it works well and you can kind of memorize where your most used settings are on the list so you can definitely get to them pretty quickly this way I actually like the way it looks in landscape I don't use my phone in landscape that much but it looks like the settings from Android Honeycomb back in the old tablet days taking advantage of the bigger screen all right number two is redesigned notifications so you can see your notifications are a bit wider now they take up the whole width of the display and they show a lot more information now again really taking advantage of the bigger high-res displays we have and you can tap the little down arrow to expand or contract notifications or you can stick to the two-finger drag which is a lot easier to get that more information and then some apps like first- party apps like Gmail will let you expand so much that you can actually take individual action on each item so notifications are bundled as they come in but once you expand it you can archive emails like one by one or pick a single email to take an action on like a reply and I think more apps will start to pick this up too so if you get like three Twitter notifications you can choose what to do with each one after you expand so I like this and you also now have a half swipe over to get to notification settings for that app uh I kind of liked the long press better but that's how you do it now and some apps will support inline replies in the notifications so like Hangouts for example the new Hangouts app will let you reply to a message without ever leaving the notification panel and then get back to what you're doing again a lot of this stuff is new functionality to take advantage of your bigger screens I like it so number three is redesigned Quick Settings up top this is something we've seen in skin versions of Android before actually so HTC Sense TouchWiz but now you can just pull down once and have these quick toggles to frequently Ed functions like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth or your flashlight or whatever when you pull down again that's when you get to your quick settings at your you're familiar with with the bigger panel and it's paginated so you can swipe across between screens as many as you want here and there's also a new edit button right up front so you can go in there and move stuff around move stuff in move stuff out move stuff into the top five so that it becomes a quick setting Etc so this is classic Android full-on customization fun you can really set the most used functions right up top to be at your fingertips number four is a redesigned multitasking so this is definitely my new favorite change in Android n so right off the bat the multitasking cards are way bigger so it lets you see more info in your last used app on the screen which is pretty cool and then when you're in an app and you hit the multitasking button it brings the app you're in way down to the bottom because you don't don't want to go back into that same app I've done that by accident a lot so now when you hit the button it just gets out the way and shows you a big card of your second to last most used app so now what it gets right is one of my favorite editions which is the double tap it kind of acts like a quick app switcher and swaps back with your most recently used used app I think it's awesome it's handy for quick copy paste stuff or just going back and forth between two apps you use a lot like Twitter and Reddit and back to Twitter whatever you're doing it's pretty handy and then new to stock Android we now have split screen multitasking so when you're in an app you hold the multitasking button then pick another app and then you're in and this is awesome uh we again used to only see this in skins but now you can grab the bar in the middle and resize the multitasking windows or use the bar to close one out entirely I got to say for a developer preview this is really smooth like I didn't expect it to be this good at all but it's nice and stable and it works works in landscape too so I'm hoping I'm hoping that a bunch of apps now that this is in the developer preview will quickly support this in a few months down the road so we get this new version early app developers get to build it in and then when the new version of Android comes out like a new Nexus almost everyone's apps already works with split screen all right number five last but not least is the dark mode it was kind of buried in the last Android M developer preview but again we have a functional night mode in Android which essentially reverses the colors in a major core apps like settings to be dark Behind the Green which can be useful if you're using your phone at night or at someplace where you don't want it to blast light everywhere uh it still is in system tuner so you don't exactly have it at your fingertips but you do get to dig in and mess around with it and it even has a feature to automatically turn on at Sunset kind of like the night mode in Google Maps nice so there you have it there's a bunch of other little stuff here and there like an improved doze that should even work to help save battery life when the phone is in your pocket and there's also a data saver mode so when you just know you're going to run out of data you can kind of keep your phone in check there but that's the best of what's new in Android n so far again it's just a developer preview number one so more changes and features will be added before the final version this summer yes the app drawer is still here looks like we're keeping that but let me know what you think what's your favorite new item personally I'm all about that double tap app switcher but that's just me thanks for watching and I'll talk to you guys in the next one peace\n"