Gadgetory

hello again ladies and gentlemen i'm joe hindi from android authority comm and today is the day we finally get to talk about android pi Google's big keywords this year are AI well-being and simplicity we'll see that and a lot more an Android Pi so strap in folks this is gonna be a long one the UI is as good a place to start as any the core UI experience remains unchanged from previous versions of Android the home screen settings notifications quick settings and app drawer are still in their usual spots they look more or less the same with some minor tweaks like more rounded UI elements and more colorful icons in both the settings and the quick settings menus the big change this year came with navigation and the recent apps Android now has a simpler gesture based navigation system instead of the traditional three soft keys across the bottom don't worry you can change it to and from the new navigation system if you want to under the gesture settings in the settings menu it keeps the home button and back button and they function as normal including long pressing the home button for Google assistance you now access the recent apps menu with a quick flip up from the home button swiping up closes applications and there's a clear all option all the way to the left multi window is still accessible in this layouts by long pressing the icon at the top of the card another quick swipe up opens the app drawer and you can skip the recent apps and open just the app drawer by using a longer swipe upward from the home button finally a swipe right on the home button immediately opens the most recently used application and you can hold right to scroll through all of your various recent apps this has been one of Android PI's most polarizing new additions but after a few days of use muscle-memory kind of takes over and it's really not that big of a deal I've been using this feature since its launch in an earlier beta and honestly it doesn't take long at all to get used to again though you can change it back to the regular old three button layout if you want to some other tweaks include a revamped power menu with a new a screen shot option that means no more holding the volume down and power to catch a screen shot and Android Pi finally comes with a native screenshot editor the power menu now pops up next to the power button and the goes for these software volume controls they now show up next to the volume rocker the software volume is now defaulted to media volume instead of call volume like in previous versions of Android you can also silence your phone more quickly with the new icon at the top of the software volume controls additionally there is now a dirt theme option in the settings it only seems to theme a very small percentage of the UI making it functionally useless however it's a positive sign that a dark theme made its way to a stable released this year the text selection tool also got a bit of a revamp you now get a magnifying glass function when selecting text in Android Pi and it works well enough additionally the web search and translate functions are now on the main pop up instead of the overflow menu finally Android Pi includes native support for the knotch we were able to play with it in a previous beta release so we turned it off for this video the support is still there though buried in the code and visible in parts of the UI for instance when you get notifications from more than four applications you get it dot urging you to check your notification shade for more this happens even on devices without a notch and that's a little frustrating the clock is also on the left side of the status bar freeing up more of the space in the middle for the proverbial notch it's subtle but it's all there and that's about it for the UI changes really there are a few additional tweaks animations status bar changes and other small things here and there but aside from the new navigation system and a few reworkings of some other elements most of the UI is the same with some minor adjustments for uniformity and style Android Pi didn't have any hallmark features like in previous versions of Android indeed the biggest change was the new gesture UI stuff and we already talked about that still there are a bunch of little things in Android Pi that do add to the experience even if it's just a little bit the first new feature is the ability to manually rotate the screen at will you simply turn the phone on its side and a little icon will appear in the navigation bar at the bottom of the phone press it and the screen will rotate into landscape mode and of course this action does work in Reverse notifications got a few new features as well there is a manage notification shortcut at the bottom of notification cards for quicker access to more options additionally Google brings its AI into the mix with notifications if you swipe away a notification enough times the UI eventually asks you if you want to silence those particular apps on silencing those apps is a bit of a pain but nothing too horrible messaging apps also now show more content than they did before there are also two new app features in Android Pi they include app actions and app slices app actions uses Google's AI to predict what applications you want to use and when most of the time for me it was just sending the occasional message however my fellow editors noticed prompts for things like phone calls messages emails and more you can disable app actions by searching for suggestions in the settings menu selecting actions and then turning them off if you don't want to use them app slices is another feature but this one didn't make it into the stable release of Android Pi at least not yet we believe it'll be launched alongside the pixel 3 later this year slices let you view certain parts of the application when you need them instead of launching the entire app for instance you can search for lyft and Android pi will show part of the application where you can Hale a ride it's neat but we'll have to wait a little bit longer to actually try it ourselves Android PI's AI makes a couple more appearances in the new adaptive brightness and the adaptive battery features for adaptive brightness it'll change the brightness based on the ambient lighting as it always has however it'll also remember how you manually adjust the brightness in certain situations and try to learn how you do it in order to predict it in the future adaptive battery works in a similar way but for applications the apps that you use most often will get the most resources and the apps you use least often will have their resources limited by the OS there are some bugs with this like delayed notifications for your idle apps but it should help battery life a little bit along with the already included those mode there are a few other minor features in Android Pi as well the do not disturb mo was vastly simplified it's still customizable but slightly more restrictive than the old one the battery saver mode got some slight visual tweaks but it operates the same as before location settings are also streamlined you can now only have it as on/off or GPS only and we're sure gonna miss battery saver mode finally let's talk a little bit about digital well being a new function and Android PI this feature shows you your phone usage and that includes the number of times you unlock the device the number notifications you receive which apps you use and how often you use them this helps you identify how you spend most of the time in any given app from there you can manage your usage in a couple of different ways there are shortcuts to do not disturb mode and manage notifications additionally you can access to more new features in Android Pi winddown and app timers app timers helps you restrict how often you use applications simply set the timer and the operating system locks you out of that application when your time is up it's a method of keeping you from using your most addictive apps on your phone too often winddown starts at a certain time that you set it makes your phone grayscale over time and eventually engages do not disturb mode automatically as sort of a sign that it's time for bed or right now digital well-being is in beta and you need a beta invite in order to use it Google doesn't make you wait very long most of us here at Android authority got our invite after about 8 to 10 hours or so we'll have that link for you in the video description below if you're interested of course as per the norm there are plenty of changes that take place under the hood we won't spend a lot of time with this because it's impossible to show them and it'll make this video quite boring really fast Android Pi now supports dual cameras natively something that apparently wasn't available before applications should have an easier time using all the cameras on a phone with the newer api's Android Pi is also coming with a bunch of new image audio and video codecs including HDR vp9 video hei f image compression and some additional stuff as well Wi-Fi RTT is a new positioning API it allows your phone to ping multiple Wi-Fi hotspots inside of large buildings so that applications can better tell you where you are within that building that should be really neat when it rolls out there are also new animation api's improvements to Kotlin client-side encryption api's and a lot more of course many api is like the neural networks api received fairly large updates as well if you want to see the full list we'll have it linked up in the video description below so you can see all of the under the hood stuff for yourself finally let's talk about Android PI's new security features for starters Android Pi restricts access to sensors camera and microphone to applications that are in an idle State you will get notified when an application requests these permissions through a regular notification and you can say yes or no from there that means no applications can spy on you or listen to you in the background additionally Android Pi now scrambles MAC addresses so it'll be more difficult to track your device over Wi-Fi each time you connect your phone will show a different MAC address we still recommend a VPN for public Wi-Fi but this is a positive step forward a few other minor security additions include better protection for your device ID better transmission of sensitive data and you now get warnings when applications aren't using the latest Android SDK levels since those can post security risks Android Pi also improves on encrypted backups and it blocks non HTTPS traffic by default overall Android Pi is a decent update in my opinion it's a bigger jump to go from Android Orio to Android Pi than it was to go from Android nougat to Android Oreo if that makes sense the UI saw much larger changes than usual and the new features are smaller in scope but feel more useful in day-to-day use the magnifying glass in the text selection and the screen rotation button are things I can see a lot of people using every day even if they aren't overly exciting of course everyone's been clamoring for new UI elements and bigger changes after all material design is almost half a decade old now however Google is finally taking an approach where if it's not broke they're not really fixing it and after that Fiasco with their messaging app ecosystem I'm all for them leaving well enough alone for right now Android pie looks demonstrable a different than Oreo and you can definitely tell the two apart with a cursory glance however it is not as big of a change as many would have liked if I had one complaint about Android Pi it would be that another theme this year seems to be restriction do not disturb mode was simplified but functionality was removed in the process and the same goes for location services and their removal of OMS digital well being is cool and all but its main function is to help to restrict yourself from using your device more often this is by far the most restrictive version of Android to date and while some of it is for your own good some of it is a little worrisome in any case I want to hear what all of you think Android Pi is what it is and I'm interested to see what you think about it and that about does it for this one folks if you like this video you know the drill and if not well you still know the drill we have some source in the video description below along with some older videos if you want to check those out and learn more details thanks again for watching everybody and have a wonderful day