Android P is Here

We expected Android P to arrive in Mid March but Google surprised us all and just released it out of the blue. Yes Android P is here when Android Oreo is on less than 2% of all Android devices but that's a topic for another time right now let's talk about Android P.

Here's the Android P Developer Preview on a Pixel 2 XL so let's take a look at all of the changes and new features in Android Pie ,Android Pancake, Android Peanut Butter or whatever they'll call it.  First and foremost Android P brings a lot of visual changes I mean if you look at the home screen it looks very similar to Android Oreo but there are a lot of changes.

Here's what I'm talking about as is customary for every new Android version the quick settings pane has received a complete makeover with nice rounded buttons for all the toggles that now look really iOS like. To be honest I like this new design so I have no complaints and although the looks have changed it works pretty much the same. Also notifications on Android P have received quite the vive amp as well and they now support a clean minimal look with rounded corners all over the place. But that's not all notifications will now also be able to display images in the notification itself making it much easier to see what someone has sent.    Notifications in Android P also have native support for smart replies in messaging apps and the option to save replies as drafts if implemented by the developer. We also see a new redesigned settings page. A change that is so overused by Google it seems as if it's permanently on their to-do list. This time around the settings page has colored items all over the place and they do give a refreshing feel to what was otherwise a blue and white wasteland. A piece of interesting trivia Android P will block custom overlays making substratum themes useless, but the settings page on Android P is almost an exact replica of the flux white substratum theme. Well-played Google. There are also changes in the way Android P handles animations. Moving between apps now has a side to side animation that looks very iPhone 10 like. It almost looks like Google took some cues from Cupertino we could say that Google puts the cue in Cupertino No?

Notch Support
 As the rumours suggested Android P has display cutout support which is just a fancy way of saying not support. So yeah Google has accepted that Android phones will have notches now so I think it's about time we accepted it too. The Android P Developer Preview even lets you visualize what different notches will look like and how the app interacts with them. This is actually meant for developers to test their features out and should translate into apps that play well with notches on Android phones, but you can also use it to take a look at what future Android smartphones will look like.

Screenshot Editor
Yet another useful feature that Android fans have been asking for, for a very long time and even one that we actually mentioned in our video on features that Android still lacks is a screenshot editor.  Thankfully, Android P has an editor built right into the OS itself it's called markup and brings a very basic editor that can let you crop rotate or doodle on his screenshots. It's very similar to the screenshot tool that was introduced in iOS 11, so yeah it does seem like Google is taking a lot of inspiration from iOS this time around.

Lockdown
If you're living with the person who cheks on your phone, chances are you've woken up to find a phone in his hands with him going through all your personal stuff believe me I know. Fortunately Android P is making life better for us with a brand new feature called lockdown. What it does is simple, just toggle the feature on and your phone will not unlock even if someone tries to use your finger to unlock it while you're sleeping. Basically it's something that locks a fingerprint scanner. That's awesome and definitely something people will use.

Low power mode
Anyway moving on to more changes in Android P the low-power mode is sort of going through an identity crisis right about now, with Google using at least two different names for the same thing. It's called reduced power mode in the battery settings and battery saver in the quick settings tile. More important though is the fact that battery saver mode can be set to automatically activate between any battery value between five and seventy percent. You know for people who get panic even when their phone reaches 70 percent. It's all pretty pedestrian for me except one thing the battery saver mode doesn't turn the status and navigation bar orange anymore, which is awesome because that just it looks terrible.

Multi Camera Support
Oh this one is nice Android P will let developers use what Google is calling multiple camera API. This opens up new creative ideas in dual camera phones, like accessing the camera free from both the lenses at the same time, or getting a seamless zoom and even for getting stereoscopic shots from dual camera phones. It's awesome and developers can use this to create some amazing apps. I'm definitely looking forward to developers using this API in apps designed for Android P and it also makes me think that maybe just maybe the Pixel 3 might come with dual cameras.

Other changes
Other than that there are a few changes that I couldn't fit anywhere else but they're worth knowing about. For example the power menu now has a screenshot button which is actually handy. The app info page gives the uninstall and force quit buttons hidden in the three dot menu. Volume buttons change the media volume by default instead of ringer volume which is a lifesaver. Lastly, do not disturb mode doesn't have all the priority only, alarms only, type of things anymore. It's just do not disturb.

Developer Oriented Changes
 If you're a developer reading this blog,  then Android P brings a ton of new features for you as well. First and foremost apps in the background will no longer be able to access your camera mic or any of the other sensors on your phone which is great for privacy reasons. Improvements have been made to the Android runtime which should result in better app performance with lower resource usage.  Apps can now use Wi-Fi to calculate a user's indoor position. Autofill now has better supports for 3rd party apps. Lastly there are some power related changes that I couldn't really understand so I'll just leave that to you. So yeah Android P does look like it will be a great new OS from Google. However keep in mind that this is just the first developer preview and they will definitely be a lot of changes before Android p is ready for primetime.

So that was it guys what do you think about Android P and which is your favorite feature do let me know in the comment section below.