Gadgetory

hey guys Chris Carlin for Android authority here to take a closer look at the brand new features in Android 7.1 nuga as you know 7.1 arrived on the Google pixel phones but they have quite a few software features that no other phone will be getting so today we'll be taking a look at the Android 7.1 on the Nexus to see what features have filtered down and which ones we've missed out on now as you no doubt will have noticed this is just the regular google experience launcher this is not the new pixel launcher you'll see we still have our shortcut to the app tray at the bottom there rather than an additional app shortcut and of course our navigation buttons at the bottom here are of the old variety and of course we don't have access to the Google assistant we just have screen search which seems to be the new name for Google now on tap now perhaps the most exciting new feature in Android 7.1 on a nexus is the presence of launcher shortcuts which you'll also get on the pixels basically you just long press on an app icon to get a contextual menu of quick shortcuts if there's a shortcut that you particularly like or use very often you can long press on the shortcut itself and then add a shortcut shortcut to your home screen now these work for a variety of apps although at the moment it's mostly just google apps because obviously Google is trying to impress with the new Android 7.1 feature but as we go on more and more developers will likely add them for their apps as well and as you can see they also work from the app drawer now the next thing I want to show you is up in the quick settings area you can see if we bring down the notification shade we've still got the same notification set up we know from Android 7.0 but our quick settings toggles across the top have gotten a little bit more numerous we've now got 6 instead of 5 and that's because the little caret here the little drop-down arrow that expands the quick setting Styles has now migrated up a notch and it is now joined on this first view by a shortcut to the settings menu if you expand you can still have access to your full quick settings tiles and of course you can edit the list and and whatever you need including having multiple screens now display out the Nexus 6p here being a huawei device you don't have the fancy fingerprint scanner control for the notification sheet that you do get on the pixel and on other Huawei devices unfortunately it looks like Google has decided to keep that one as a exclusive for the Google pixels and right from the top of the list of Android features that we cannot believe it took this long to finally make it is the addition of a restart button to the power off menu may have taken forever but I'm just glad it's here we jump on into the settings you'll see a few other changes here nothing much has changed in the general look but we now have a two tab view up the top here so everything on the left and a support tab on the right which we also have in the pixels now you'll be able to launch a chat straight away or request a phone call at any time of the day from Google to answer any questions you may have about your Nexus or Android 7.1 nuga a couple of things I did want to show you in the settings menu though is for starters in storage we have a new button up the top here for managed storage this Storage Manager provides two options one is smart storage which is basically just an automated version of the option you have in Google Photos to free up space it allows you to automatically remove photos and videos periodically from your device so you don't have to be prompted to back them up and get them off your phone every now and then so that's the automatic storage cleanup and then there's another one called free up space now this is basically just a manual version you've still got access to photos and videos to clear up but you can also choose to enable apps and download cleanup which basically will populate this list every now and then with a bunch of downloads that you could essentially delete as well as apps that maybe you're not using so much and down the bottom here you'll get a quick tally of how much space you can free up if you do so so the next thing I wanted to show you is a little bit further down it's a new section called moves which you will have seen if you've been watching any of our google coverage now moves is basically a bunch of gesture shortcuts there's the familiar one for a double press of the power button to launch you straight to the camera app then there's of course the flip gesture that you would know from Motorola devices to switch between the front and rear facing camera and then live to check your phone also known as ambient mode where you pick up your phone and it will display your notifications on the lock screen of course we're not going to get the fancy new parallax wallpaper effect that you see on the new pixel phones and the wallpaper picker on Android 7.1 on a traditional nexus is much the same as it has always been follow Android 7.1 does have support for round icons in the Android 7.1 version you'll find on nexuses you'll see that all of the icons are still of the AA variety and not the circular ones you'll see on the pixel of course if you're willing to read your phone then you can always install the Google pixel launcher and get most of the features available on the Google pixel phones including access to the Google assistant so what else is new and what else is missing unfortunately it looks like access to the system UI tuna has been removed in Android 7.1 on the Nexus now if you long press on the Settings icon up here that'll just take you straight into the settings menu it won't provide access to any of the customization options we had access to before that also means that things like night mode and dark mode are not going to be making an appearance until potentially later on you'll see here also that we're running Android 7.1.1 not just 7.1 alone so that was a little bit of a surprise of course you'll also see that nothing much has changed in the East Egg you still have access to the neko atsume cat catching game which is rather fun and one other thing you'll notice here is that in the system updates of the top eater when you press that you get a splash screen that just tells you that your system is up to date it will actually check for an update at the time but there's no longer that satisfying button to mash when updates start to roll out so that's about it for the new stuff in Android 7.1 on the Nexus devices there may be some additional pixel features coming at a later point there is one more Developer Preview planned for later in November before the final public will release of Android 7.1 in early December till then guys keep it locked to Android Authority and subscribe to the channel if you haven't already because we are your source for all things Android