With Android P, Google wants to help you bring some balance back into our smartphone-dictated existence.
Google’s new Android P will focus on helping users regain their phone-life balance. While some features of Android P like its adaptability for the notch, were already been known thanks to the first developer build, Google I/O offered a close look at the big changes in Google’s mobile OS. So what does Android P offer that’s new for users? Here’s a look at the changes that matter.
Android P and managing your digital life
With Android P, Google wants to help you bring some balance back into our smartphone-dictated existence. For users who find they spend too much time on their phone, Android P will have a solution in the form of a Dashboard. This will let users see exactly how much time they spending on their phone, how many times they unlock it, how many times they look at the notifications, how glued they are to a particular app. All the details to remind one of how addicted they are to the smartphone. Whether it will scare users from reducing time devoted to smartphones is another matter.
Then there’s the option of an ‘App Timer’, which will let users set a limit on how long they should use this particular app. Say for instance, you spend hours on Instagram and decide to set an app limit of one hour for daily usage. With Android P, the OS will remind you when you are closing to exhausting this limit. If you do cross the time limit, it will gray out the app’s icon.
Android P is also revamping the DND mode, which will now block out all the visual interruptions which appear on the screen as well, rather than just blocking the calls and message alerts. Additionally, if users turn their phone over on the table, it will automatically enter DND mode in the new OS.
Finally, there’s a new function called Wind Down. This one is crucial because it will be activated at night, ahead of a user’s bedtime, where many of us might still prefer browsing our smartphone before dozing off. If a user picks a fixed bedtime, ‘Wind Down’ will switch on Night Light when it is dark, turn on DND automatically and fade the screen to grayscale. The purpose here is to make sure that the user goes to bed at the time they have chosen, rather than spend another hour browsing the phone.
Adaptive battery life on Android P
Android P will offer better battery life thanks to a new ‘Adaptive battery’ feature. Google is relying on its own DeepMind to drive this feature where the system will able to figure which apps a user tends to use more, and while apps are used less. DeepMind is relying on ML and AI to figure out a user’s app usage and will prioritise battery power for apps, services which are used more. Google says this results in 30 per cent fewer CPU wakeups, which goes a long way in extending battery life. Yes, Android P could extend battery life further, when it eventually rolls out for phones, thus solving one of the biggest pain points for users.
Google is also using machine learning for ‘Adaptive Brightness’ which will figure out how users set the brightness on their screens depending on the environment, lighting. Adaptive Brightness will then automatically adjust display brightness for the user by understanding their preferences.
Android P and Gestures
Android P brings new gestures for navigating smartphones, especially given the trend of more 18:9 aspect ratio displays, which are taller with no home button on the front and often difficult to use with one hand. Android P will add one home in-screen button, which users can swipe up to see Overview, where all their recently used apps will appear in a full-screen preview. To go back to an app, a user can just tap on one of them and exit Overview. Smart Text Selection will also work in Overview as well. There will also be an easier way to take Screenshots and users will be able to edit them and annotate screenshots in Android P without relying on other apps.