It's that time of the year again, where we get the next major update to Android.
This new version, 8.0, is called "Oreo", and has a lot of new features that I'm actually
really excited about, and a couple things I'm not so sure about.
In any case, we're going to look at 15 of the best changes with this new update, including
some major changes, and small changes as well.
Now before we begin I want to give a quick 2 second plug to my Instagram and Twitter
accounts, I try to post good stuff on there, so if you want to check those out, they're
both just @ThioJoe.
Anyway, let's get going.
Ok, starting off, one of the first big changes people will notice in Android 8.0 is that
they completely redesigned all the emojis.
The blobs are no more, and now we have circular emojis just like all the other platforms.
I've talked about this in a video before, and how I think the new emojis are pretty
darn ugly actually.
And I'm all for making them consistent with other platforms like iOS, that makes sense.
But to me they just look poorly designed, with weird gradients and thick outlines.
And of course, we will never forget the most upsetting casualty, the turtle, who has now
been replaced with this ugly beast.
But anyway, for some reason a lot of people actually seem to like these new emojis, so
it looks like we're not going to get rid of them any time soon.
Moving on, the next few are some significant new features having to do with notifications.
So for number 2 we have the new "notification dots".
Now on the home screen or app drawer, whenever an app has an active notification, it will
show a dot in the corner of the icon to signify just that, you have a new notification.
If you've ever used an iPhone before, this feature will probably seem very familiar,
because iOS has had the same feature for years except it would show a number.
Also, another cool thing is you can long press on the app icon, and it will show you a shortened
preview of the notifications, so you don't have to click into them every time.
The one thing I'm not sure about though, is that the notification dots apparently only
show when you also have a notification in the notification bar as well.
So to me it seems pretty redundant that it would show in both, like why do you need the
dot if it's already showing up there.
I don't know.
still, they might make changes to how they work at some point, we'll have to wait and
see.
Onto number 3, you now have the ability to snooze notifications.
This is something I've been waiting for a long time.
So when you get a new notification, you can partially swipe it to the side, which will
reveal two symbols, a gear, which takes you to notification settings, and now a clocksymbol.
If you press the clock, it will remove the notification for a certain amount of time,
which you can adjust by clicking the dropdown, either 15 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour or
2 hours.
Then once that time is up, the notification will come back.
This is great for stuff that you can't deal with at the moment, or just don't want to.
Ok, next up is the new so-called "notification channels".
And this basically just means you can now customize how certain notifications can behave
for certain apps.
For example, whether an app can create notifications that vibrate the phone, or play a sound, or
show on the lock screen, that sort of thing.
This is ideal for apps that you might like getting notifications from, but maybe they're
not urgent, so you don't need them to vibrate and play a noise, you just want to see that
it's there the next time you use your phone.
To adjust these channels, you can navigate to an app through the settings window, or
if you get a notification, partially swipe it and click the gear this time, then "more
settings", and it will bring you there.
Alright, number 5, here's a cool one, picture in picture.
This one is a pretty big deal I think, you probably think so too.
For certain apps, like YouTube or VLC media player, if you're watching a video and press
the home button, the video keep playing and minimize to a small window and stay on top.
And it will stay like this even if you open up and use other apps.
If you want you can drag around the window, and if you tap it you'll see options to pause,
go to the next video, close it, or go back to viewing it in the original app.
Pretty awesome.
Number 6, "instant apps".
This feature will allow you to run certain apps, without having to download them from
the play store.
So how it works is someone might make an instant app hosted on their website, so when you go
to a certain URL, it appears and brings up the app then.
This way you can get more functionality than a regular mobile page, and don't have to actually
go make people go download it.
So it's almost like a super mobile web page, in that it can do a lot more than a regular
web page, but maybe not as much as a real app.
Obviously I'm pretty sure these will have less abilities than one you would be able
to download and install for obvious reasons, but it is perfect for giving users a better
experience from your website without them doing anything.
Also, these instant apps will be backwards compatible with Android versions 6.0 and later.
About half way through now, number 7, is smart text selection.
Android will now use AI to try and predict what parts of text you are trying to select
when you double tap on something.
So if you double tap on an address, it's smart enough to realize you probably want to select
the whole address.
Same for a phone number.
But it apparently will also work for less obvious things like the names of restaurants,
so if your friend texts, "we're going to Bob's Pizza Joint", if you double tap that name,
it should theoretically highlight "Bob's Pizza Joint".
Also, now when you highlight certain types of text, it will give you a shortcut right
there to open a related app.
So if you highlight an addrss, it will give you the option to search it in google maps,
same goes for a phone number with the phone app.
So that will definitely be useful, and if the smart text selection works as well as
they claim, that should be cool too.
Alright, the next change is that Apps will now be limited in how much storage they can
use for their data cache.
This is more of a background-feature so I can't really show you it, but it's still important,
I think you guys are going to like it.
As you know, any app you use will store certain data a "cache" so it's quickly accessible
later, as opposed to having to be downloaded every time.
But sometimes app caches get really bloated and take up a ton of storage.
So now, Android O will be able to manage this data.
I don't think there will be a specific hard limit for everything, like this amount and
that's it forever, but it will rather change depending on the situation.
Like if you have 128 GB of storage, it will let apps have a bigger cache.
Or if you start to run out of space, it will start clearing out some of that cache.
Not something that will be obvious, but still helpful in the background.
Number 9 is very simple, apps will now be able to use gestures using the fingerprint
sensor.
Assuming you have one that can detect gestures, developers will be able to let users swipe
either vertically or horizontally on the fingerprint sensor, which would then do 'something'.
Before this basically only worked with system apps, and I think it was only on Pixel and
Nexus phones as well, but now you should start to see it on others too.
Moving on, number 10, you'll now have the option to have Android automatically turn
your WiFi on and off depending on whether you're near a saved WiFi network.
And this feature should help you save both cellular data and battery life.
For example when you're away from home, the WiFi radio will be off, using less battery,
and when you're at home, it will turn on WiFi, so not to use cell data.
I'm not totally sure how it detects when you're within range, but I'm guessing it's either
location based with GPS, or it could do periodic background scans, or even a combination of
both.
Next up, we have some updates to the battery usage menu.
Like before you can see which apps used how much power, and a graph of battery over time
if you tap on the battery.
But it doesn't show system battery usage, like from the screen, or cellular data.
To change that, you now have to tap on the three dots in the corner, and you'll see a
new option to "Show full device usage".
So now instead of just showing apps usage, it will show you system usage as well, such
as the screen, the OS itself, and phone idle.
This obviously isn't a new feature, but I figured I should point it out, because a lot
of people will be wondering why they can't see all the battery stats.
But one thing I think is new is when you click on an app, it now shows you how long the app
has been running in the background.
So you can spot apps that may be using up data or battery when you're not even using
it.
Ok the 12th new feature is called "Rescue Party", kind of a funny name, but could be
super helpful.
This is another "behind the scenes" feature built into android, and it's meant to protect
your phone against bootloops and repeated crashes.
How it works is, if you phone reboots 5 times in 5 minutes, from repeated crashes obviously,
it the operating system will automatically start applying fixes to solve it.
It begins with simple things like clearing the data cache, but if it keeps crashing,
will start applying more drastic fixes each time.
Eventually, if it tries everything and it's still doing it, it will ask you if you want
to actually factory reset the phone.
Though me personally, I would probably still want to try to search for more ways to potentially
fix it before deciding to wipe the whole thing.
And hopefully it doesn't get to that point.
Number 13, something SO simple that I've been asking for forever.
Stock android now shows the battery percentage next to the battery in the status bar.
I mean yes, before you could have the percentage show on the battery icon, but it was so small
you could barely see it!
So THANK YOU Google, seriously what took you so long.
Ok so coming near the end, 14 is actually a pretty big feature, which is a whole new
Autofill API.
What that means is there is now native support for certain apps to be able to autofill forms,
no matter what app you're using it in.
And you can choose what app is the one that can do this by changing the default "AutoFill
service", it's a new setting.
And If you're still confused, one example is if you have a password manager like Lastpass,
or Google's own autofill service with smartlock.
With these, when you get to a log in page for any app, that app can now automatically
fill it in.
With your login data, or data for your credit card, or whatever.
And before, you had to jump through all sorts of hoops and give these apps special accessibility
permissions and what-not, but now it's all built in.
This should also improve battery life, because those apps no longer have to constantly run
in the background and scan for fillable forms.
So this should be very useful.
And finally, number 15 is also very simple, and that is the Night Light feature now has
a slider so you can actually choose the intensity of the effect.
This is something I've been asking for forever.
I'd honestly wish they would let you shift it even more like you can on iOS, but I'll
take what I can get.
And so we're done, those are some of the best new features I've come across in Android 8,
but of course there are others I didn't mention.
If I missed any big ones, I'm sure you guys will let me know in the comments.
If you want to keep watching I've got some other videos I think you'll enjoy right here,
and if you want to subscribe I make a few new videos every week.
Also consider enabling notifications too or YouTube probably won't show you the new videos
anyway.
So I'm looking forward to hearing from you guys, and I'll see you next time, have a good
one.