A week with Android N, our thoughts
Last week, Google surprised everyone by releasing a developer preview version of Android N, the next version of Android operating system. As I had a Nexus 6 in the house, I decided to give a thorough testing. For past one week, I have been using the Nexus 6 with Android N as my primary phone. If you want to know what are the new features of this version, head to this page where I had explained the features that we liked most. In this article, I explain how my experience is with the Android N.
First two days were amazing. There were only few minor bugs that did not effect my day to day activities. The battery was not a problem too. The subtle font looks awesome on the 2K resolution display and I fell in love with the notification bar. Finally, I can reply to mails and messages from the notification bar without opening the application. Google now allows multiple pages of quick toggles which means that I am able to have more quick toggles and it is a real boon. The new mini quick toggle (single short swipe from top) is something that I love.
In general, a beta version of an OS or app is not optimized and results in lag and severe battery drain. At least for this Nexus 6, though there was visible lag here and there (not all the time), the battery consumption was good. I have not yet experienced severe battery drain, thanks to the Doze feature that works much better than in Marshmallow. Unlike in Marshmallow where Doze would suspend applications when the device is not moving, Doze now activates when the screen is turned off. I did observe that applications like Plume will not refresh sometimes. The application will be stuck in ‘refreshing’ mode and you have to kill it and start it again. Same goes with few other apps and widgets. One weird thing here is that sometimes, the phone automatically switches to 3G even though I selected ‘2G’ as the preferred network type.
The multi window mode is very good but I am not able to use this feature by playing a video on youtube and checking news in other window. The moment I click on second window, Youtube stops playback as it thinks that I have moved to another application. It will be interesting to see how this feature will help smartphones. For tablets though, it will be very very helpful. The call blocking is a definite boon. I am able to block quite a few numbers (mostly those asking me to take a credit card etc).
One issue is with applications that use native platform libraries. Apps should not depend on or use native libraries that are not included in the NDK, because they may change, or be removed from one Android release to another. But for some unknown reasons, some apps like Skype rely on these platform libraries. Because of this, applications like Skype crash (I am not able to use Skype at all because of this issue). At first, I thought that is Android that broke Skype but then this page explained that all these apps should be updated to include new code. So, until Microsoft acknowledged and updates Skype, I have to rely on my Mac Mini or the Lumia 640 to make Skype calls, which I guess is okay. Also, when I take a photo, I am not able to share the photo using Whatsapp or Telegram from photos or camera application. The only way is to open Whatsapp or Telegram, go to the group/contact and then share photos.
There isn’t much to update about Android N. This feels more like an Android 6.5 than Android 7 (probably, this is what Google may use for version). If you have started using Android N, do share your experience with us, whether you like the new version or not, whether you are facing any issues. As of now, Google seems to be well set to release Android N to public on or before Google I/O that is going to happen in May 2016.
Overall, I am left with mixed feelings about Android N. For sure, my phone will have better battery life and the notification bar is going to save lot of time. But I am skeptical about giving this version a new name. Hoping that Google will add more new features to Android N as weeks go by. If you are using a Nexus smartphone for which Google has released Android N, I do suggest you to give this a try (do take full backup of your data). You do not have to reinstall any applications as the phone is upgraded to the new version. And you can always go back to Android M by flashing the factory ROM.
