Gadgetory

hello again ladies and gentlemen I'm Joe handy from Android Authority Google went about releasing Android nougat a different way than years past regardless of how you feel about it the official release is out now which means it's time for us to take a closer look this is an overview of android nougat if you've been following the developer previews then most of this isn't going to be new to you the interface is essentially the same as the final developer preview and for those who haven't seen this yet not all that different from Android marshmallow the home screens still function the same way with the app drawer still present Google now to the left of the home screens and the notifications and settings in their typical places there are some new features hanging around the main interface which we'll discuss here momentarily but in terms of navigation it's pretty much the same as marshmallow some of the elements remained pretty much the same and those include the Google now page left of the main home screen and the app drawer both of these elements haven't changed at all the quick settings have been revamped since marshmallow but again there isn't much here that's new from the previous developer previews for those who don't know there is now a little set of toggles when you first launch the notifications they can give you even quicker access to some settings this then expands to the usual quick settings menu when you flip it down again in the quick settings you can edit the layout to make it whatever you want it to be any edits you make on the regular quick settings are also reflected in the quick toggles so you can customize both at the same time the quick settings are also now paginating so you can have multiple pages of quick settings if you want this is useful because app developers will eventually be able to add their own toggles and you don't have to leave any behind if you don't want to aside from that the settings shortcut is still in its usual place and you can tap the face icon to change users long pressing the settings shortcut unlocks the system UI tuner and long pressing the individual toggles will launch the settings menu for that particular setting while we're in the vicinity let's check out the notifications they've received a permanent visual revamp that makes them visually flattered this creates a wall of notifications that takes a few days to get used to but they're actually very enjoyable once you do the big features here are that the notifications are bundled so they don't take up much space you can unbundle them by clicking the top half of the notification you can also quick reply straight from the notification panel without opening the application do note that not all apps can do this yet but most of the popular ones should aside from that you can have swipe the notification one way or the other to access the notification settings for that application so you can deal with those more quickly the recent apps screen received a bit of an overhaul as well the application cards are now larger and easier to read although the change won't improve your experience all that much you can swipe away apps to close them as usual and Google has finally placed a clear all button at the top right hand corner along with that you'll be able to quickly switch back and forth between two applications by double tapping the recent apps button you don't have to be in the recent apps screen in order to use this feature but it will pop you there for a second when you do do note that it will only use the most recent application and the second most recent application for this feature and it should also work in multi window mode speaking of multi window it's now an official feature you'll be able to access it two ways the first is opening the application you want on the top panel then you long press the recent apps button and it will launch multi window and then you can choose the second app the other way is to go to the recent apps screen long press the top border of an application card and then drag it to the top of the screen once in split-screen mode you can press the home button and navigate to your phone normally however the next application you open will be the bottom app in split-screen mode once you're in there the top application is locked in but you can change the bottom one if you want to there is a slider in the middle that you can move to give one application more space you can also slide this slider all the way up or down to exit multi window mode quickly if you prefer the only other way to exit split-screen mode is to long press the recent apps button there were a ton of new things going on in the settings menu and will start with the visual tweaks when you enter the settings you'll be able to access a slide-out menu that lets you quickly jump to any other page in the settings this is great if you're hopping around multiple settings pages at once at the top of the main page of the settings menu there is now a suggestion section that will prompt you to set up parts of your device that you may not have otherwise have known about you can follow the suggestions or dismiss them as you see fit it's worth noting that if you have alarm only mode enabled that will also show up at the top of the settings where you can dismiss it if you want there are also a variety of changes inside of the settings so let's dive right in the first one is under data usage you can now activate a new data saver feature that essentially prevents everything from using a data connection unless you're using the app directly handle with caution because it will prevent your emails from coming in under display there is now an option to scale your display up or down in other words that let you make stuff bigger or smaller this little accessibility feature is great for customization or if your eyesight is even worse than mine the settings for apps also got a small addition at the bottom of any given application settings page you can see if the app was installed through the Play Store or if it was side loaded you can't do anything else with it but that info is there just in case you need it under storage if you go to the Explorer option the built-in file browser received a slight visual overhaul you'll now see little cards instead of a giant list like you did on marshmallow you'll also get a fully functional slide-out menu with additional browsing options under the user section you can add emergency information such as your name allergies blood type emergency contacts and more you can access this by clicking the word emergency on your lock screen and then you'll have to click it again at the top of the lock screen and then you'll be able to see all of the information under the developer options you'll notice that webview is no longer an option under webview implementation it's now only Chrome and that's good because now webview is where it belongs in a graveyard also under the developer options are two options to force applications to be moveable to the external SD card and be forced into multi window even if they're not supposed to I really wouldn't mess with these but they are there finally that brings us to the under the hood changes there were a freaking ton of them so we'll just mention them briefly the most noticeable is that Android nougat now uses Unicode 9 emoji which contains 72 new emoji they have also been redesigned with a more consistent look and feel to them it's been noted by many smart people that gender and color could still use some work but that should come in future updates Android nougat now comes with support for Vulcan API as well as Java 8 the Vulcan API has been heralded for a year now as being the future for mobile games so this is very good news the Android runtime has been modified so that it uses both ahead of time and just in time compiling this results in faster boot times especially after updates and faster app installs from the Google Play Store there is a new lighter doze mode that is kind of like doze mode junior it still lets notifications through but many background tasks will be designated to a maintenance window where they can do their normal things this doesn't affect regular doze mode which is still present there is now a seamless update feature baked in that you'll never have to see this essentially allows for the operating system to be updated without you having to sit through an installation screen it does this by maintaining two system partitions that switch back and forth as they get updated no current phones can make use of this but future nougat phones will there have been numerous changes in optimizations and nougats to prepare for daydream which is Google's VR platform this includes optimizations to the software that control sensors and graphics as a side effect the old daydream section in the settings is now called screen saver we'll learn more about all of that stuff later this year the security encryption in nougat has been revamped from a full disk encryption to a file based encryption long story short it's easier for the end user and still provides tons of added security for the phone and it will be able to boot without requiring a pin those are the big ones but there are a ton of smaller tweaks like the revamped media server and the new permission that lets apps ask for permission for only one folder on your internal storage these are too numerous to list here because we'd be here all day it was also announced shortly after release that nougat will be receiving regularly scheduled updates which is likely to fix bugs combat security threats add new features and keep everything running smoothly it is worth noting that many things such as dark mode and the RGB tint mode did not make it into the final build of nougat there is an invert colors mode as well as a couple of other developer oriented toggles that are completely useless to us average folks so it's best to ignore them for now okay that about wraps it up for this one it was meant to be a quick overview but when it's an entire operating system updates even a quick overview can take eternity what we have here is a continued maturation of Android as an operating system it's true that we didn't get a new design but material design is pretty awesome anyway and I don't blame Google for not wanting to leave that one behind just yet the majority of changes are things you won't notice or aren't readily available yet especially things like Vulkan API which can take some time to proliferate in terms of performance the Nexus 5x had no trouble running this whatsoever it's definitely daily drivers safe we are going to dive into Android new get in depth over the coming days and weeks so make sure you keep it tuned to Android authority comm and our YouTube channel in order to see all of that and that about does it for this one folks if you want to keep watching we have my original developer preview quick look video linked up there on the screen and in the video description below if you want to check that out like I said we have more nougat goodness plans so keep it tuned to Android authority because we are your source for all things Android thanks again for watching everybody and have a wonderful day