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What are the New Features That Make Android 9 Pie Awesome?

For Android app development that has truly eye-catching features, look no further than Android 9 Pie. As far as mobile app development is concerned, Pie has what it takes to stand out from the competition.

 

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Here are the new features that make Android 9 Pie simply awesome.

1 New Gesture Navigation

Android deploys a standard 3-button navigation bar at the screen’s base generally. In Pie, one can drop the standard Home, Recent and Back buttons in favor of a new gesture-based navigation system. Future devices will ship with this feature enabled, but the old buttons will still be visible after updating. To utilize this feature, one needs to head to Gestures under System in Settings and swipe on the Home button. This will cause the navigation bar to change and reveal the new gesture navigation. It offers smoother navigation compared to the older style.

2 Adaptive Battery and Brightness

Android has a lot of automated features, but some of these just got smarter in Pie. Adaptive Battery is a further iteration and expansion on the Doze feature found in Android 6 Marshmallow. Doze places apps that are not being used in a deep sleep to prevent a battery from being wasted. Adaptive a Battery goes further by learning about apps and services used often and adjusting the settings based on what you don’t deploy, thereby utilizing less battery.

Android’s automatic brightness also gets upgraded with Pie. Now, the phone will learn the brightness level preferred in certain environments and apps and make adjustments automatically. It can even be trained by opening the Quick Settings panel and adjusting the brightness as per the requirement.

3 App Actions

Google’s launcher predicts apps most likely used based on the time of the day. Now, App Actions enable you to quickly start tasks by predicting what you need to do. A shortcut to Google Maps navigation can be seen in the morning, for example. At work, you can chat with workers on Hangouts using App Action. When one plugs in headphones, App Actions can be seen in the most recent playlist. There are much like app shortcuts available by long-pressing icons inspired by iPhone’s 3D Touch. Smarter predictions mean these can be used often.

4 Slices

Much like App Actions, Slices lets you jump right to certain app actions. For instance, if you are looking for a ride on Uber using Google on your smartphone, there’s a shortcut to hail a ride to work complete with the ETA and price.

5 Improved Security Features

This version of Android restricts access to a mic, camera, and all Sensor Manager Sensors from idle apps as per Google. This means even if the app is not granted permission for access to a microphone, it won’t do so unless one is actively deploying it. Further, a new lock-down mode fortifies the phone in emergency settings. After enabling this at Settings, go to Security & Location, and then Lock Screen Preferences. Then, show the Lockdown option.

The Lockdown option can be tapped on Power menu. This instantly locks the phone, disables fingerprint unlocking as well as Smart Lock and hides notifications on the lock screen. A PIN, password or pattern will be used to unlock it. This is useful if you feel your smartphone may be subjected to biometric invasions. It’s also great for emergencies.

6 Digital Well Being

Digital Well Being is part of Android and indeed, one of its most interesting features. This is a suite of Google features designed to help individuals to see how often the phone should be used and apps where you spend the most time. The dashboard displays the notifications the apps send you, time spends apps and how often you should check your phone.

Daily limits are in place to keep you from wasting hours in time sinking apps. Additionally, there’s a revamped Do Not Disturb feature which switches off not just audio notifications, but visual ones too. This helps in blocking distractions. Then, there’s a Wind Down feature which fades the phone to grayscale when it’s time for resting. Android Pie is set to embrace this feature and its beta version will be part of this OS, too.

7 New Accessibility Menu

While Android has a lot of accessibility features, these are not always easy to access. A new Android Pie menu makes it easy to access common functions for users requiring assistance. Features are in place to ensure the phone can be utilized to the maximum extent. This menu needs to be enabled. This feature makes navigation easier for users having an issue with Android gestures.

8 New Screenshot Shortcut

Using the Power and Volume down Button combination for shortcuts is hard. In Android Pie, one can take shortcuts from the Power Menu just about any time. One can also tap the Edit command in the notification that helps to make adjustments to the shot right away.

9 Simpler Screen Rotation

Android automatically switches on the screen orientation on the basis of how it is situated. The orientation can be locked to portrait or landscape as well. In Pie, if Auto Rotate is turned off, a new icon can be seen on the right side of the navigation bar when the device is rotated into a landscape. It needs to be tapped to lock in the orientation and will remain even if the orientation will be changed. The icon needs to then be tapped to rotate back to the portrait.

10 Volume and Sound Improvements

When the Volume button is pressed by Android Pie users, the slider will appear on the right side, not the top. What’s more, pressing volume buttons changes the Media volume instead of the Ringer volume previously. The simple volume tweak makes it quicker to avoid opening a YouTube video and accidentally playing it out loud. Tapping the Note icon, you can mute or activate the media audio. Additionally, you can also tap the icon above to toggle calls volume between Ring, Mute and Vibrate.

Then, the Gear icon needs to be selected to open the Sound menu and make extensive adjustments. Android Pie also offers Bluetooth options, whereby you can open up to five Bluetooth connections as against 2 in Oreo in one go. Calls go to Bluetooth devices which can handle them. Volume for individual Bluetooth devices will also be recorded. This means easier listening clarity and no booming sounds while using the Bluetooth speaker at maximum volumes.

11 Selectively Switching on the Dark Mode

Android Oreo offers a dark mode, but it chooses to adjust as per the wallpaper and the system automatically decides on it. In contrast, Pie lets you switch the dark mode on or off anytime.

12 Easier Text Selection

If you’re used to a lot of copy-pasting every day on an average, this change in Pie will surely be suited for you. When you long-press for selecting the text and grabbing the handles, a magnifier lets you see what is being chosen.

13 More Notification Information

If you want to have clarity about which apps are sending distracting notifications, move to Settings, Apps and Notifications and select Notifications. In the Recently Sent section, you can even view which apps have recently pinged you. Tap to get more information about apps from the last 7 days. Android Pie is an update from the previous OS, Android Oreo.

Conclusion

Pie is a new OS navigation system with screen time controls, privacy tweaks, and battery optimization. It rethinks navigation through its gesture-based system and applies machine learning to power cells, thanks to a collaboration with the DeepMind team at Alphabet. With Android Pie, Google shows information embedded within apps.

This is an innovative approach to remote content. Android Pie includes many privacy features. Google’s digital wellbeing software is the only part of Android Pie OS which will remain in beta for a while more. All in all, the Android 9 Pie offers interesting new features and amazing value addition. Learn more about how Sankalp’s mobile development team and how they can help your business to grow. Experienced at Android and iOS hybrid apps, Team Sankalp is focused on offering clients exactly what they are looking for.

Sankalp’s skilled app development team is, thus, the right choice for your growing business. To know more about us, visit our pages on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or our channel on YouTube.

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