15 Best Android O Features [Android 8.0 Oreo]

Well, it is that time of the year again when we get the next major update for Android. This new version is Android 8.0 also called ‘Oreo’ and has a lot of new features that am actually excited about and a couple of things am not so sure about but in any case we are going to take a look at 15 of the best changes with this update including some major changes and small changes as well.

#1: Redesigned Emojis

One of the first big changes people will notice in android 8.0 is that they completely redesigned all the emojis. The blubs are no more and now we have circle emoji’s just like all the other platforms

#2: Notification Dots

Now on the home screen or in the app drawer, whenever an app has a notification, it will show a dot in the corner of the app icon to signify just that you have a new notification and if you have ever used an iPhone before this feature will probably seem very familiar because iOS has had the same feature for years except they will show a number.

Also, another new thing is that you can long press on the app icon and it will show you a short preview of the notification, so you don’t have to click into it every time.

#3: Snooze Notifications

You now have the ability to snooze notifications. This is something I have been waiting for a long time. So when you get a new notification, you now partially swipe it to the side which will reveal 2 symbols: a gear which takes you to the notification settings and now a clock symbol – if you press the clock, it will remove the notification for a certain amount of time which you can adjust by clicking in the dropdown so it is either 15 minutes 30 minutes 1 hour or 2 hours. Then once the time is up the notification will come back. So this is great for stuff that you can’t deal with at the moment or maybe you just don’t want to.

#4: Notification Channels

Next up is the new so-called notification channels and this basically just means you can now customize how certain notifications can behave for certain apps. For example, whether an app can create notifications that vibrate the phone or play sound or display on the lock screen. This is ideal for apps that you might like to get notifications from but maybe they are not urgent – so you don’t need them to vibrate and play noise, you just want to see that it is there the next time you use your phone.

To adjust these channels, you can navigate to an app through the settings windows or if you get a notification, you can partially swipe and click the gear icon this time and then More Settings and it will bring you there.

#5: Picture in Picture

This one is a pretty big deal I think you probably think so too. For certain apps like YouTube or VLC media player, if you are watching a video and you press the home button, the video will keep playing and minimize to a small window and stay on top and it will stay like this even if you open up and start using other apps. If you want, you can drag around the window and if you tap it, you will see options to pause, go to the next video, close it or go back to viewing it in the original app. pretty awesome!

#6: Instant Apps

This feature will allow you to run certain apps without having to download them from the play store. So how it works is someone might make an instant app hosted on their website so when you go to a certain URL, it appears! And brings up the app then. This way you can get more functionality than just a regular mobile page and you don’t have to actually go make people download it. So it is almost like a super mobile web page in that it can do a lot more than a regular web page but maybe not as much as a real app and also these instant apps will be backward compatible with Android version 6.0 and later.

#7: Smart Text Selection

Android will now use artificial intelligence to try and predict what parts of text you are trying to select when you double tap something. So if you double tap on an address, its smart enough to hopefully realize you probably want to select the whole address. Same for a phone number but it will apparently work for less obvious things like the name of restaurants. Also, now when you highlight certain types of text, it will give you a shortcut right there to open a related app. so if you highlight an address, it will give you the option to search it on Google maps. Same goes for a phone number with the phone app.

#8: App Data Cache Limits

Apps will now be limited in how much storage they can use for their data cache. This is more of a background feature so I can’t really show you but it is still important and I think you guys are going to like it. As you know, any app you use will store certain data in a cache so it is quickly accessible later as opposed to having to download it every time. But sometimes app caches get really bloated and take up a ton of storage. So now android Oreo will be able to manage this data.

#9: Fingerprint Gestures for Third Party Apps

Apps will now be able to use gestures using the fingerprint sensor. Assuming you have one that can detect gestures, developers will now be able to let users swipe either horizontally or vertically on the fingerprint sensor which will then do something. Before this basically only worked for system apps and I think it was only on pixel and nexus phones as well. But now you should start to see it on others too.

#10: Automatic Wi-Fi

You will now have the option to have android automatically turn your Wi-Fi on and off depending on whether you are near a safe Wi-Fi network and this features should help you save both cellular data and battery life. For example, when you are away from home, the Wi-Fi radio will be off using less battery and when you are at home, it will turn on the Wi-Fi so you are not using as much cellular data.

#11: Battery Menu Changes

Before, you can see which apps use how much power and a graph of the battery over time if you tap on the battery now but it doesn’t show system battery usage like from the screen or cellular data. To change that, you now have to tap on the 3 dots in the corner and you will see a new option to show full device usage. So now instead of just showing app usage, it will show you system usage as well such as the screen, the OS itself and phone idle.

#12: Rescue Party

Kind of a funny name but it could be super helpful. This is another one of the behind the scenes feature built into Android and it is meant to prevent your phone against boot loops and repeated crashes. How it works is if your phone reboots 5 times within 5 minutes from repeated crashes obviously, the operating system will automatically start applying fixes to solve it. It begins with simple things like clearing the data cache but if it keeps crashing, it will start applying more drastic fixes each time. Eventually, if it tries everything and it is still doing it, it will ask you if you want to actually factory reset your phone.

#13: Battery Percentage in Status Bar

Android Oreo now shows the battery percentage next to the battery in the status bar.

#14: Auto Fill API

This is actually a pretty big feature which is a whole new auto fill API. What that means is now there is native support for certain apps to be able to auto-fill forms no matter what app you are using it in and you can choose what app is the one that can do this by changing the default auto-fill service.

#15: Night Light Mode Slider

The night light feature now has a slider. So you now actually choose the intensity of the effect.

And so we are done! Those are some of the best new features I have come across in android 8.0 but of course, there are others I didn’t mention. If I missed any big ones, am sure you guys will let me know down in the comments. Also, consider sharing this article with friends.

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