[What's New] Google Officially announced Android M Developer Preview

28 May, 2015 Android Marshmallow

Android M 6.0


As we reported before. Today, Google has just officially announced Android M Developer Preview, the preview images will be available today and the final official release will be available later this year. There is no official candy-flavored name for Android M yet. Here's What's New on Android M :

 


Exclusive Screenshots

 

Official Change-log


 

Handling App permissions!

 

android m

 

Android M is now official and it will be all about the user experience

 

First and foremost, it is already being perfectly clear to us that Android M will be largely focused on the user experience instead of major UI design overhauls, like was the case with Android Lollipop. The very first feature announced on stage at I/O 2015 were changes to app permissions - a seemingly unimportant aspect of Android, but one that we clash with on a daily basis. In Android M, which will have its own developer preview available as Lollipop did, users will have to battle with, and okay, permission requests much less often. Why? Because app permissions will be granted only once, instead of every time you install an app. For example, if you want to send a voice message through Whatsapp, you'll only have to agree to grant the app the permission once, and will never be asked to allow microphone usage in apps again. The above will apply to all other categories of permissions, which have been simplified to be more understandable than before - so things like 'Camera' and 'Location'.

 

Since you may want to revoke a permission from an app at a later time, you'll be able to do so through a menu in the settings, which will let you to control whether all or select apps have access to a certain category of permissions.



Android Pay and native fingerprint scanning support

 

Android Pay

 

Another major announcement has to do with a new service alike to Apple Pay. Called Android Pay, it's Google's reboot of Wallet, allowing for mobile payments within stores. As you can imagine, it'll use NFC to communicate with terminals. On top of this, Android M is also introducing native support for fingerprint scanners, so manufacturers will no longer have to bake in support themselves  at least unless they want to. Coupled with Android Pay, it's obvious that Google is getting really serious about mobile payments.


Chrome Everywhere

 

Android M

 

Android M is now official and it will be all about the user experience.

 

If you're big on reading through Facebook, you will likely have noticed that the app no longer sends you off to do your thing with the help of third-party browser, and instead does everything within Facebook. This very same type of functionality is coming to apps (Pinterest being confirmed), allowing third-party developers to bake in such functionality within their apps. The heavy-lifting will be done with Chrome, though the interface will remain consistent with the app's design.

 

Why you should care? Because this implementation will allow apps to pre-fetch content before you even open it, so load times will be lower than ever.

 

Android M "Dozing"

 

Dozing

 

Seeing how battery life continues to be an overarching issue with smartphones, it only makes sense that a major update such as Android M will focus on this aspect of the experience as well. With M, Google is introducing 'dozing', a special mode that will only activate when your device's various sensors determine that your device is not being used (say, it's just standing on your desk), and enter an even deeper state of sleep. Thankfully, dozing won't stop your alarms and priority notifications from reaching you.

 

The results? Google claims that an identical setup with Android M manages up to x2 the standby time of a device on Android Lollipop. If true, dozing truly is a big deal.

 

On a related note, Google has made its support for USB Type C charging ports public, meaning that we can expect more such devices to creep up on us rather soon. The end of failed attempts at connecting your device is in sight, people!

 

The small things

 

Not every Android M feature is as noteworthy as Android Pay or better power management, yet the smaller things do make life easy (or a living hell). Two such examples are sharing content on (stock) Android, and volume control.

 

Direct share

 

android m

 

While sharing various types of content has been core to the Android experience, one could (successfully) argue that the implementation has been in need of a serious improvement for a while. Not only are we bombarded with tons of apps we can share content to, but many devices don't really learn from your usage habits.

 

Seeing as Google is pitching Android M as all about the user experience, it makes sense that it worked on that. With Android M, your device will finally make sense of how and who you share with, allowing for ever smarter suggestions next time around. So if you constantly send over content to your girlfriend, your Android M-toting device will know that you're most likely to share with her again in the future. So she'll be your number one option.

 

This feature has been available in proprietary, Android-based UIs, but it's good to see Google is both paying attention and willing to implement smart ideas into Android.


Finally! Volume control by category

 

Another exceedingly smart feature available with select manufacturer UIs, and unavailable with Android Lollipop, is volume control by category. This means that if you wish to change the volume for notifications and alarms, but not music and your ringtone, you could only do so whilst in an app the controls this category of sound. So the media controller was only available when in a music app. With Android M, this will finally change, as the volume bar will now include the sliders for all groups.

 

Mo Cheng
Editor-In-Chief
YouMobile

Description

youmobileorg
Posts: 8370





© 2023 YouMobile Inc. All rights reserved