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Google's Android N OS Will Support Pressure-Sensitive Screens (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader writes: In the latest Developer Preview 2 of Android N, Google introduced new "Launcher shortcuts" to the beta OS. It allows developers to "define shortcuts which users can expose in the launcher to help them perform actions quicker." It's reminiscent of Apple's "3D Touch" feature found in the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, which can allow for specific parts of an app to be displayed in a pop-up menu when users forcefully press on an icon or other miscellaneous piece of information developed with the feature.
As mentioned in Phandroid's report testing the "setDynamicShortcuts(List)" feature, Google offered four different scenarios where Launcher Shortcuts make sense: Navigating users to a particular location in a mapping app, sending messages to a friend in a communication app, playing the next episode of a TV show in a media app, or loading the last save point in a gaming app.
"Google says that the manufacturers who build Android devices wanted this use case addressed by the OS itself," according to The Verge, so that developers "can code for all Android devices instead of reinventing the pressure-sensitive wheel for each OEM."
As mentioned in Phandroid's report testing the "setDynamicShortcuts(List)" feature, Google offered four different scenarios where Launcher Shortcuts make sense: Navigating users to a particular location in a mapping app, sending messages to a friend in a communication app, playing the next episode of a TV show in a media app, or loading the last save point in a gaming app.
"Google says that the manufacturers who build Android devices wanted this use case addressed by the OS itself," according to The Verge, so that developers "can code for all Android devices instead of reinventing the pressure-sensitive wheel for each OEM."
Google needs to make better apps, plain and simple. The phones are already more than powerful enough and full featured and remember they are only phones. They have to be small so the need to scale them up will always be limited and I honestly think we already exceeded that need. What we see now is just a booming market desperately looking for the magic number to put it's cash on in the form of marketable gimmicks for phones. Yet, what people clearly want and need is more refined software. The problem is, most of the apps are free and Google doesn't seem to grasp that those core apps are what secures their platform for the future OR what makes it very easy for Windows 10 Mobile to all of a sudden look like a perfectly valid alternative one day, which will happen and will more or less take people by surprise somehow. The biggest reason for this will just be that Android mostly sucks as a phone platform. They just basically forgot to stay focused on phone features first and foremost. Secondly the UI is just a horrible random mess of whatever and most people don't like that. Third, Google will not focus on core apps, instead they are more worried about redundantly creating apps that they can trust and integrate into their platform. They created this wonderful open marketplace only to eventually replace all the open apps with their own because they realized that people cannot really trust random developers on the playstore with the kind of data that a mobile platform would eventually require. Now here we are Google's platform is insecure, it's bleed personal info, they're trying to crack down on the playstore, but years of lack of oversight has just left it all a big hot mess. They'd probably be just as good off taking what they learned and starting it all over from scratch with a focus on UI, core apps and proper branding. Apple has done a better job, but their platform is still in the infant stages. Windows 10 mobile on the other hand is a real platform, it's just not quite finished and needs apps, but the potential it has and the technology behind it is far better. It's more like a real OS shrunk down and not part of an OS cannabalized and turned into a mobile OS. iOS and Android are more like pieces of code meshed together and Windows 10 is more like mobile platform 2.0 which has learned from their mistakes as well as integrated into the world of Windows desktops which Google and Apple were foolish to not do. They will soon pay a stock market price for that decision. If I had money I'd buy MS stock. Their mobile OS is clearly better in 1/3 the time or less and most people love Windows 10. It's just a matter of time now.