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Google Details New Android P Features, Including iPhone X-Like Gesture Controls (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A public beta for Android P, as it's still known, is out today for those who want to try the software for themselves. The usual caveats with installing unfinished software still apply. Notably, however, Google has made the beta available on devices beyond the company's own Pixel smartphones. Google says those who own the Essential Phone, Nokia 7 Plus, Sony Xperia XZ2, Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S, Vivo X21, Oppo R15 Pro, and the OnePlus 6 (when it comes out) can access the early build alongside those with a Pixel or Pixel 2 phone. Google is crediting its Project Treble updating initiative for making this expansion possible.
As for the update itself, the biggest news in Preview 1 was a new design style that was applied to the notification panel, main settings screen, and some system UI bits. Android VP of Engineering Dave Burke recapped a couple of features that had already been announced in that earlier preview, including a simplified volume control widget and the option to change the screen orientation even when you've locked the device in portrait mode. Perhaps the most immediately noticeable new feature, however, is a new set of gesture controls that trade Android's traditional home and recent apps buttons for a setup similar to what Apple does with its iPhone X. Swiping up from a flatter button at the bottom of the screen will now display a horizontal (not vertical!) list of your recent apps, with icons for five "predicted apps" placed underneath them. Swiping up a second time from there will display the all apps screen, effectively allowing you to access it from anywhere on the phone. You can also slide the home button sideways to start scrolling through recent apps. The icons for those recent apps appear to be larger than before, and Google showed off the ability to highlight text within them. The back button is still there, but not as a global key; it instead appears to only show up in certain contexts, such as the new recent apps screen. Also available in Android P is an "adaptive battery" feature that improves battery life, an "adaptive brightness" feature that uses AI to ensure the phone screen's brightness is more appropriately set for your surroundings, and an "app actions" feature that will surface shortcuts for frequently used apps within the app drawer and Search. Google is also including a "digital wellbeing" Dashboard app that will detail how much time you've spent in particular apps, how often you've unlocked your phone, and how many notifications you've received. There will even be an "app timer" to help you limit your time on a particular app, and a "shush" gesture that will make is so the phone automatically goes into Do Not Disturb mode. Finally, there's a "wind down" mode that will turn on Do Not Disturb until the morning and set your phone screen in a grayscale mode, which will intentionally make content on your phone appear less stimulating to ultimately help you put it down.
As for the update itself, the biggest news in Preview 1 was a new design style that was applied to the notification panel, main settings screen, and some system UI bits. Android VP of Engineering Dave Burke recapped a couple of features that had already been announced in that earlier preview, including a simplified volume control widget and the option to change the screen orientation even when you've locked the device in portrait mode. Perhaps the most immediately noticeable new feature, however, is a new set of gesture controls that trade Android's traditional home and recent apps buttons for a setup similar to what Apple does with its iPhone X. Swiping up from a flatter button at the bottom of the screen will now display a horizontal (not vertical!) list of your recent apps, with icons for five "predicted apps" placed underneath them. Swiping up a second time from there will display the all apps screen, effectively allowing you to access it from anywhere on the phone. You can also slide the home button sideways to start scrolling through recent apps. The icons for those recent apps appear to be larger than before, and Google showed off the ability to highlight text within them. The back button is still there, but not as a global key; it instead appears to only show up in certain contexts, such as the new recent apps screen. Also available in Android P is an "adaptive battery" feature that improves battery life, an "adaptive brightness" feature that uses AI to ensure the phone screen's brightness is more appropriately set for your surroundings, and an "app actions" feature that will surface shortcuts for frequently used apps within the app drawer and Search. Google is also including a "digital wellbeing" Dashboard app that will detail how much time you've spent in particular apps, how often you've unlocked your phone, and how many notifications you've received. There will even be an "app timer" to help you limit your time on a particular app, and a "shush" gesture that will make is so the phone automatically goes into Do Not Disturb mode. Finally, there's a "wind down" mode that will turn on Do Not Disturb until the morning and set your phone screen in a grayscale mode, which will intentionally make content on your phone appear less stimulating to ultimately help you put it down.
"Swiping up from a flatter button at the bottom of the screen will now display a horizontal (not vertical!) list of your recent apps, with icons for five "predicted apps" placed underneath them. Swiping up a second time from there will display the all apps screen, effectively allowing you to access it from anywhere on the phone. You can also slide the home button sideways to start scrolling through recent apps. The icons for those recent apps appear to be larger than before, and Google showed off the ability to highlight text within them. The back button is still there, but not as a global key; it instead appears to only show up in certain contexts, such as the new recent apps screen."
Great stuff. The innovation is real. Things appear and disappear based on "certain contexts" and the same action produces different results based on the previous action. Genius!
Is that like used oil or something?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
All it brings to mind is this.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
wow thats a long screed
pretty sure this is actual obfuscated spy talk
I know that we keep seeing lots of failures as new teams try, but the situation remains: the currently-popular phone OSes suck, and are just getting worse. iOS is closed and developers can't even distribute their software without Apple's blessing (IBM wishes they were that anti-user in the 1960s), and Android is trying its best to get harder to use and less convenient. I recently had to upgrade from 4.4 to 7.0 and for everything that got better, something got worse.
The world needs a non-sucky phone OS. Even Microsoft has a better than 50% chance of being able to do a relatively fantastic job compared to Apple and Google. But so do you, Mr Random Developer, so maybe go for it.
Wait, did I miss something? I thought we were still trying to make AI. Or did they mean algorithmically? Because the terms should not be conflated.
brandelf -t FreeBSD
I don't care about gestures. Here are the smart phone features I actually want:
- landscape videos+photos while holding my phone in portrait orientation
- 2x bigger battery, I'm ok with the extra size+weight
- live-sync web browsing from my phone to my desktop, tablet, etc.
- physical home button + finger reader, preferably on the back
- >4GB ram, >128GB storage
Once I've got all these, that's "peak phone" for me. Its the top of the S-curve. Rather than expecting new features every year, the price should just drop.
This is an amazing and brilliant development. Navigating our smartphones by touching the screen with our fingers.
Heck, I still have some Android 4.x tablets that were purchased brand new and still haven't got their first-ever OS updates, leaving them vulnerable to Heartbleed and other by-now *ancient* exploits. I've also given up on the idea of ever getting any update for my Marshmallow tablet.
I've now since ruled out the Android ecosystem altogether because it's such fucking abandonware. And I refuse to give the fruity company a penny. Who's left to take my money?
BB10 had very good gesture controls. Apple was not the first.
Designed by idiots who have no idea about user interface design.
Have you noticed that there is virtually NOTHING on the entire internet about user interface design nowadays? It's all 'UX', which is a load of bollocks, invented by incompetent idiots who couldn't design a new interface element if their lives depended on it. Programs and websites are not the same thing - at all.
Gesture controls are terrible design because they aren't intuitive in any way. If software companies stopped worshipping the god of 'flat' design, they could actually have buttons that looked like buttons, and then have a usable interface again, without any need for stupid gestures.
" uses AI to ensure the phone screen's brightness is more appropriately set for your surroundings"
What a brilliant excuse to know your "surroundings", just in case some pesky commission asks "why, google?".
These don't really sound like exciting changes.
I just bought an android N phone with a headphone jack, an SD card slot, and a removable battery, it seems I'll have that phone for a very long time if Google is going to insist on copying Apple instead of actually improving their OS.
As is, "Grab 'em by the PUSSY!" Or maybe, if one person presses his thumb on The Donald, P stands for Putin!
Yes, I didn't read TFA
You mean like webOS.
Nothing looks good with this. It all looks like shit
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.