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Google announced the new Android M, the Lollipop with more features built-in

cjmagowan  —  9 years ago ( May 29, 2015 )    |    Technology

android-m

With Google I/O 2015, the search giant and owner of the world most popular mobile operating system Android unveiled the next iteration of its popular OS. Dubbed as “Android M” at the moment, the OS is yet to get an official name later as it get closer into a final build for the mainstream users. While it is already available for testing for a number of supported devices. The software itself is not entirely a stable platform but it’s designed for software developers to test and port their applications for compatibility purposes and that it would become readily available as soon as the OS hits public launch.

Eager users however may get a glimpse on what Google has baked-in with the upcoming OS, as long as they have a supported device’s on their hands may download and install the developer preview of the OS into their devices. Users should note that they may encounter bugs along the way as they use the software. Like experts are saying, it would be better to install and test Android M on a device that’s not your daily driver.

With each iteration pops-in, it’s the tradition of providing new features as we increase numerical values of the version number of a given software. So taking off with the successful story from Android 5.0 Lollipop, Android M will continue to improve the OS and adding new features to enhance user convenience and user experience.

With Android M, Google adds an iOS-styled App permission scheme, instead of having all the necessary permissions of a given app be set during installation, Android M apps will ask for a certain permission the first time you use them but can also set changes to these permission by going directly to the Settings menu.

With today’s apps, Android makes it easy to jumped between apps and browsers, while it’s a little convenient for some, others find it annoying that developers are adopting an embedded web view within the apps themselves, the Chrome team at Google crafted a different solution with the new Custom Google Chrome tabs by given developers the freedom to style each tab on the Chrome browser to look more like the apps that initially launched the browser. This also gives users a seamless transition between browsers and apps then back again without a much noticeable changes to the environment and will even make it look like that the browser is a part of the app itself and not to be a third-party in the process. Google also added a new feature called the “App Links” which will link apps in a secure way by verifying cryptographically with the web server before the next action will be taken, this is also designed to block and identify malicious apps that may have already been installed on your Android device.

Google Pay will make you next online purchases more secure and trouble-free, the new feature will make use of the device’s NFC to make a secure payment using your credit card. Google Pay will act as a bridge during online transactions and keeps all credit cards data private. While the service is just kicking in, major Credit cards together with US major wireless carries and stores are all jumping in to Google’s bandwagon and will hopefully expand into other areas where this type of technology would be of good use for users to protect them against fraud.

While it has already proliferated the smartphone world, Google is yet to offer a native support for a fingerprint sensor. With Google Android M, both users and developers can use their fingerprint sensor more sensible than just online payments. Google will provide the necessary API’s to make the fingerprint sensors available to any other apps that may use the feature in certain task and gestures.

Power and Charging are one of the key problems with Android OS but as time progresses, power management within the OS proves to be directed towards improvements with one ot the biggest turnovers was when Android 4.4 (KitKat) was introduced in the market and was later been leveraged with Project Volta in Android 5.0 Lollipop. With Android M, Google is still finding more ways to conserve battery life that they came out with a new feature call Doze. Doze will allow apps to check servers are do background processes less often and making everything in the phone take the low-power state but can quickly wake up as needed.

Android M will also add a new quick charging feature with support for a new USB type C standard which will also devices to charge with 3% to 5% increase than with today’s current standards. With USB type C standard, the cable will be bi-directional and that will allow power to be given in or out from the device making devices with larger battery packs with them act as a power bank for other devices.

Android M is yet to get an official name with Google plans to release three separate previews of the OS before the final build goes public. The first preview is already out and is available on Nexus 5, Nexus 6 and Nexus 9 devices.

Source : GSM Arena
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