Google has released a beta version of the next version of the Android mobile operating system, Android P, at its annual developers conference. The new software makes increased use of machine learning and artificial intelligence to improve phone features such as battery life and screen brightnesss, and also introduces new app 'actions' and 'slices' to make it easier to find and access apps quickly.
The Adaptive Battery and Adaptive Brightness functions were developed with Google's AI unit DeepMind. This prioritizes battery power for the apps and services used the most and learns how the user sets the brightness slider based on their surroundings.
Actions and Slices
In Google's continued effort to make phones smarter, App Actions will anticipate what the user wants to do next based on past behaviour. For example, when headphones connect to the device, Android will surface an action to resume the user's favorite Spotify playlist. Actions show up throughout Android in places like the Launcher, Smart Text Selection, the Play Store, the Google Search app and the Assistant.
While actions help find apps and functions quickly, Slices will actually open up part of the app's features on the home scree. This takes the 'instant apps' concept introduced with the last version of Android further. For example, if the user searches for Lyft in Google Search, they see an interactive Slice with the price and time for a trip to work and can then select the ride, without having to open fully and scroll through the app.
Other changes in Android P include a new system navigation, designed to take account of the increasingly tall phones that make one-hand use more difficult. Google is enabling more gestures to enable navigation right from the homescreen. From a single home button, the user can swipe up to see a newly designed Overview, with full-screen previews of recently used apps, and tap to return to an app. In addition, Smart Text Selection (which recognizes the meaning of the text selected and suggests relevant actions) now works in Overview.
Wind down
To address the growing omnipresence of smartphones, Google is also introducing new tools to help Android users manage and limit their phone time. A new Dashboard shows you how the user is spending time on the device, including time spent in apps, how many times the phone is unlocked and how many notifications received. App Timer lets the user set time limits on apps, and will 'nudge' the user when they are close to the time limit. The new 'Do Not Disturb' mode silences not just phone calls and notifications, but also all the visual interruptions that pop-up on the screen and is activated automatically when the phone is turned over on the table. Finally, the 'Wind Down' mode will switch on the Night Light when it gets dark, and will turn on Do Not Disturb and fade the screen to grayscale at a selected bedtime.
Developer tools
Google's also opening its AI features more to developers. ML Kit is a new set of APIs available through Firebase, giving developers on-device APIs for text recognition, face detection, image labeling and other phone functions based on Google's machine learning.
In addition, the company introduced the Android App Bundle, a new publishing format with a smaller app size and optimized for the wide variety of Android devices and form factors available. The app bundle includes the app's compiled code and resources, but defers APK generation and signing to Google Play, so developed no longer have to build, sign and manage multiple APKs.
Google released the first developers preview of Android P in March. The software is expected to launch on new phones from the autumn this year. The beta version is available to download for the Google Pixel, as well as the Sony Xperia XZ2, Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S, Nokia 7 Plus, Oppo R15 Pro, Vivo X21, OnePlus 6 and Essential PH‑1.
