Android P Thread

Google's Android P is all about notches and notifications
https://www.cnet.com/news/google-android-p-is-all-about-notches-and-notifications/
The search giant’s new mobile software -- right now only a preview version -- also brings upgrades in security and indoor mapping.

Google is preparing its Android mobile software for something Apple popularized with its iPhone X -- the notch. That's the little cutout at the top of phones with screens that take up almost the whole handset.
The search giant on Wednesday announced Android P, the next generation of its mobile operating system. And one of the biggest changes in the software is Google's catering to those cutouts. Because, well, the notches are coming. Both Huawei and LG are also rumored to have phones with notches on the way.

Android is the dominant mobile software on the planet, powering 85 percent of smartphones shipped globally, according to IDC. So Google's big focus on notches signals a change in where hardware design is headed.

Right now, Android P is still unfinished. It's only in preview mode and meant to give software developers a leg up before Google officially releases it.

At this point it's anyone's guess what the P will stand for. Google typically names its new flavors of Android alphabetically and after something sugary. For example, the previous Android version was called Oreo. Before that was Nougat, then Marshmallow. So Google is hoping its newest Android version will make using your phone easy as ... pie?

Still, not every phone maker is going notch crazy. Samsung, the biggest Android device maker on the planet, has opted to avoid notches in its devices. Last year's Galaxy S8 -- which hit the market about eight months before the iPhone X -- featured a screen that stretched across the entire front of the display. And this year's Galaxy S9 is the same. "As always, there's no notch," Justin Denison, Samsung Electronics America's senior vice president of product strategy and marketing, said during the company's Unpacked Galaxy S9 launch in Barcelona.

Aside from optimizing for notches, here's what else is new:
Notifications are getting an upgrade. Now you'll be able to see images in notifications, something that could help you more quickly tell who you're chatting with. You'll also have the option to use Smart Replies, Google's AI-powered responses to texts that are already available in Gmail and its chat app Allo.
Android P also allows for indoor mapping, like if you're in an airport or conference hall. That feature could have a potential impact for retailers and other vendors who want to lead you to a specific product in a store.

The software also focuses on improving battery life and making the phone more secure. Now Android will restrict access to your phone's microphone and camera while apps are running in the background, which could keep bad actors and hackers at bay. Android P also should make it easier for third-party password managers to autofill usernames and passwords. That's important given how many of us are turning to utilities like LastPass, 1Password and BitWarden to help bring a little order to our password chaos.
But while Google is introducing all these new features, it has one major challenge: making sure people actually get to use them. That's because Android's got several different hardware and carrier partners that like to add their own flourishes to the software, so getting them all to update to the current version is a constant headache for Google. It's a problem the industry calls "fragmentation."
As of the last month, only 1.1 percent of Android users are on the current version of the software, Oreo. The vast majority of them, more than 81 percent, are on three previous versions: Nougat, Marshmallow, and Lollipop.
The oldest of those, Lollipop, was first released in 2014. By comparison, Apple's got 65 percent of users on iOS 11, the most current version of its software for iPhones and iPads.
This version of Android is specifically for software developers, but the company will detail the features in more depth at its annual software developer conference, Google I/O, in May.

 

It baffles me that android manifacturers always manage to copy the worst that apple does. First was low to no repairability and no battery swapping, then no headphone jack and now this ugly useless thing. That an entire android release would be concentrated mainly on this whole notch melodrama is mind-boggling. Seems overall like a fairly weak release with the usual "something something lower battery consumption something better performance something" that are rarely ever noticed in practice.

 

Very little number of smartphones even adopted Android O...

 

Yes you are right, but they announce the new Android to give the developers the chance to innovate and use all the new functions.

 

Very difficult to compare between Apple and Google, completely different Ecosystem schools. Apple Ecosystem is so closed with very high walls, no one can get out of it, at the other side Google Ecosystem is the most opened one, you can use it almost anywhere. Each one of them has it's advantage and disadvantage.

 

Google is pissing on the community. With this iOSification of Android. The below Quick Settings UI is changed massively, they don't animate anymore just that blue highlight and nerfed that UI completely (check below) like Apple's Kid friendly UI..

Spoiler: Android vs iOS image

Icons are irreparably damaged as well since Nougat..Duarte was responsible for the Material Design but he's not the one leading the team anymore and thus we have this murder of Android to blandness and stupidity.

Spoiler: Icons

Two quotes, Second one is mine showing all the regressions to the Android.
Article is from Ars

Why does every one need to follow the damn Apple ? BGA thin and light, Notched phones, loss of headphone jack. Android OS itself, Microsoft Surface targeting dumb users with that Windows 10...I don't like this direction we are headed nor the damn Apple corporation focusing on the marketing and stupidity.

 

Looks to me a lot more like Touchwiz (now Samsung Experience) than iOS, specifically, the version that shipped with the S7 Edge, before the Note 7's aesthetic redesign and subsequent updates to the S7 Edge. It's got circles around the toggles, yes, but with the opaqueness of Samsung as opposed to the blurred transparency that Apple focuses on nowadays.

 

android should take minimally if not at all from IOS.

 

The State of Bezels! (2018)

 

Android P better not integrate and codify the Apple Notch.

I can't believe the Apple Notch is being copied, it's the worst UI blunder in a long time, and needs to disappear by the next generation of Apple and Android phones that have it

Reviewers should start measuring the "usable" screen space starting under the Notch, at the point of side to side full screen coverage, as I suspect that makers are measuring from the top of the Notch corners.

The top to bottom of the Notch black area, side to side, should be called the Status Bar, or some such, as it's not usable screen space.