Android 10 is finally out and we just got it pushed to our Google pixel 3a
which Google kindly gave us a few months ago we've been testing out the 3a
four a six months later review but I thought it'd be useful to go over one
how to get the latest version of Android on your Android device especially right
now if it's a pixel and then second I want to go over the top two features of
Android 10 which in my book are the gesture navigation as well as dark theme
so let's dive in alright first how do you get the latest version of Android on
your Android device now when Google releases the latest
version of Android they always go to the pixel phones first because Google makes
pixel phones so it's very easy for Google to roll them out to those phones
now if you have an Android device from other devices like Huawei Samsung Nokia
etc what happens is Google releases Android 10 then it's up to your device
manufacturer as well as sometimes your cell carrier to give their stamp of
approval and they'll do add-ons and customize it and add crap onto it and
then it's released to you if you want the purest version of Android how Google
intended it to be used that's really what the pixel phone is all about ok so
enough about selling you on pixel phones what you want to do is you want to go to
settings
scroll down to UC system then click advanced
and then click system update now if you don't see a system update don't panic
make sure you click that button in the bottom right hand corner that says check
for update now if it checks for an update and no update is available hang
tight Android 10 was actually launched
yesterday but we didn't get an update push to our Google pixel 3 a until about
7 o'clock the day after so once the update is available I have to do is
click to install go through the menus and things that will pop up for us it
took about 5 to 10 minutes to actually install Android 10 again it's got to
actually download the update install it on the phone and then restart the phone
now when the phone actually restarted you can tell right away that you are
getting a new version of Android Google's logo for Android actually is
slightly tweaked on the loading screen for Android 10 if you're interested more
about that Google actually did a blog post about it they've like tweaked the
color for the Android mascot and the way the mascot is incorporated into the
Android logo and a couple other things anyways it's you're interested about
that I'll link that blog post that Google put out in the video description
below now when we actually started up our Google pixel 3 a one of the most
shocking things with Android 10 right off the bat for me was it looked exactly
like Android 9 like maybe the font looked slightly different there wasn't
any pop-up or anything that said hey welcome to Android 10 here the top five
things that you should check out that you can now do like nothing and gesture
navigation and dark mode weren't even things that were turned on by default
there there was nothing pointing you to where they are so that was something
that I definitely thought is lacking overall in the Android experience is
being able to guide users at least on the version that Google puts on the
pixel phones is making it easy to guide users through new features of the phone
to go ahead and switch to gesture navigation on Android 10 you have to go
into your settings so let's go ahead and go to settings
we're going to go again to system and then gestures and then click system
navigation this will bring you to a page that shows
you you now have three options you have the three button navigation that's the
good old-fashioned Android way to navigate around a phone you have to
button navigation this is what was previously on Android nine and then you
have the new gesture navigation now gesture navigation basically brings
Android a little bit more up to par with some of the gestures that are currently
on iOS so the biggest one for me at least so let's say we're just on a
screen here is the back swipe notice there's no more back button the only
thing I wish they had that I feel like you have on iOS for certain things is
like say I went back here but I'm like oh I didn't mean to do that I can't like
I can't swipe it forward it's Android isn't set up the way iOS is where it's
like a series of cards that are like stacked on each other so if you swipe
one this way you can swipe it back like on webpages yeah you can't really do
that here so how do you go home now how do you go to the home screen well it's
actually a little bit simpler than it was before you just swipe up now a
couple other things one thing I really liked about Android 9 was the favorites
app dock and the way you get to that is actually very similar you just swipe up
hold about a third of the screen you get a little vibrate click from your phone
and there you go how do you get to the app drawer well it's the exact same way
as you would before also notice how snappy game to the app tour is I mean
that's I can't tell if they've done any performance improvements on the back end
of the OS here but even on the pixel 3a like the phone feels snappier going from
Android 9 to Android 10 it's not a huge improvement but it's nice to say the
phone was slow to begin with I'm just saying it if you'll snap you're after
upgrade all right now last thing let's talk about the Google assistant right in
to button navigation you have that center button you click it and that
would trigger the Google assistant well in gesture navigation there is no more
center button right it's just screen and then it goes to bezel basically what
they've implemented is something akin to the hot corners right you just swipe
diagonally from the corner of the screen and that will trigger the Google
assistant all right let's talk about our second feature with Android 10 and that
is dark-themed how do you get dark-themed enabled well we're gonna
need to go to settings again this time we're gonna go to display and then
you'll see that dark theme should be right underneath wallpaper or right
around it go ahead and check dark theme and that will enable dark theme for your
phone you may get a pop-up that says hey dark themes available for like these
apps but some apps don't support it yet currently I think Chrome and Gmail and
maybe there's like one other actual Google app still doesn't support dark
theme yet that support is coming and those apps are supposed to launch with
dark theme later on in September but for now apps like Google Calendar those
types of apps they work with dark theme now let's say though that you want a
toggle dark theme on and off but you don't want to have to go into settings
every time to do it well luckily for you there's actually a dark theme quick
control so you just swipe down from the top like you normally do go to your
quick settings here scroll down you'll see that you have additional things that
you could drag in tap and hold and then drag dark theme in place it where you
want it and then either swipe back or hit that back arrow at the top of edit
and now dark theme is in your quick setting controls you can easily tap oh
no more dark theme oh but I want dark theme back tap it again
now you have dark theme alright so that's just a quick rundown of how to
get Android 10 on your Android device especially if you have a pixel phone as
well as my take on the top two features of Android 10 again I really like
gestures dark themes cool I'll be even cooler when more apps support it
natively but if you liked this video make sure to hit that thumbs up button
below and subscribe to the channel if you'd like to see more pixel and Android
related videos like this one well thanks again so much for watching, for 6 Months
Later, I'm Josh Teder