Top New Features That Will Come With Android P(eda?): Google I/O 2018

By: Hannan M In: Mobiles News, News

Published On: May 9, 2018
Last Updated: May 9, 2018

Google’s annual developers event started yesterday where the search giant made official the first version of Android P Beta build. In addition to that, it also revealed some new features that will come with the new version of Android. Some of the features are very innovative and almost creepily intelligent.

Read now: Top 3 Exciting Announcements from Google I/O 2018 Keynote Event

The upcoming version of Android is aiming to take artificial intelligence to a new level and embed it deep into the architecture of the operating system. The upcoming operating system will try to automate most features and make its usability more streamlined. Let’s check out some of the features announced.

Table of Contents

Adaptive Battery

Battery has been something most smartphone makers have been struggling to improve. Some have tried making the batteries bigger while most others have tried integrating more efficient chipsets and displays to preserve some charge. Google in effort to help these smartphone manufacturers has introduced the concept of adaptive battery. This will help users in getting a more consistent battery experience.

It works by leveraging on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and on-device machine learning tech from DeepMind. How this works is by adapting to the user’s usage patterns and prioritises battery power for apps and services used most often. The operating system will categorise apps and services into 3 categories – frequent, active and rare. It will then allocate battery resource to each set, accordingly. Google claims this will help improve efficiency of smartphone batteries by a large margin.

Adaptive Brightness

Speaking about battery itself, the largest contributor to its drain has to be the ever-increasing display on smartphones. Most existing smartphones already have ambient sensors to aid in changing display brightness as per the lighting condition of the room. However, in some circumstances, you might require to override the automatic setting and set the brightness yourself with the brightness slider like you do now.

Google has addressed this little issue by flexing in some more of its AI muscle. It has introduced adaptive brightness that will tailor make brightness settings as per the user’s usage pattern. This means that the brightness setting will not just depend on the ambient sensor alone, but also give the user a more customised feel.

App Actions

App actions is something that isn’t totally new if you’re an iOS user, in fact, it is also known to some Android phones with custom UI, such as MIUI, however, with its AI prowess, we expect Android P(eda?) to excel further. What the upcoming software will do is, suggest apps based on your location, activity and actions. For example, if you plug in your headphones to your smartphone, it will suggest a music streaming app that you use the most. Or, when its bed time, it could suggest the native clock app for you to set the alarm. There can be a lot of use cases of this feature, and we sure are thrilled to see this feature make it to our smartphones soon enough.

New Gestures

Android P is expected to get rid of the software navigation keys afterall. This makes more sense since we are moving towards smartphones with bigger displays and smaller bezels. It will give users a more captivating experience. The first device that pioneered this trend has to be the flagship device from Apple: the iPhone X.

Image source: The Next Web

Among one of the new gestures coming soon includes the swiping up on the home button to reveal the newly-designed Overview, which will show users full-screen previews of recently launched apps.

Digital Wellbeing

With the steep rise in digital content and smart devices, we tend to spend a lot of time latched on to our smartphones, tablets or even personal computers. Google is looking to help reduce some of this under the tagline of ‘Digital Wellbeing.’ The company is looking to avoid users spend way too much time on their Android devices by showing them analytics of time they spend on their smartphones. The feature will also allow users see an elaborate view of which apps they have spent the most time on. In addition to that, it will also inform users about events like the number of times they have unlocked their smartphone or the number of notifications they have received.

In addition to that, the smartphones that will receive the Android P update will receive hundreds of other improvements underneath the hood, including security and productivity.

Speaking about smartphones that will receive the update, if you have one of these smartphones, you can check out the first Android P Beta build before other smartphones. That being said, the first smartphone to receive the final Android Beta build will be the Pixel smartphone lineup, followed by flagships from major smartphone brands.

List of Smartphones that can opt for the Android P Beta Build

You must, however, keep in mind that this is the initial build and that it will come with a couple of bugs and glitches which will be ironed out with more updates as we progress towards the final version.

As for now, Google has still kept the name of the next version of Android under wraps? We strongly want to believe that the company will name it after the popular Indian sweet Peda *fingers crossed*. What do you think it will be called? Also, are you excited about it? Do let us know in the comments section below and follow us on Facebook and Twitter as we bring you more such exciting news.