Android O rumours surface

Around this time last year we saw the release of the developer version of Android N. This gave everyone some semblance of how the finished Android 7.0 product would be. If Google are to release developer Builds of O we would expect to see it fairly soon and the folks over at 9to5Google have been told what some of the new features in Android O may be. The following headings are verbnatim what they were told.

New Notifications

9to5Google were told that there will be “new notifications”. There has been rumours circulating around a different notification system for Andromeda (a rumoured merged OS utilising Chrome OS and Android) and while Andromeda is still vapourware it is possible that some of the features slated for Andromeda have been merged into Android.

The new notifications are apparently powered by Google’s machine learning and will sync across devices. They will display notifications only on the device the user is currently using. The devices/Google will take into account “location, time and the device” you are using when determining the notification to display.

App icon badges for active notifications

As we have seen in third party launchers for quite a while Andorid O will apparently display badges on the app icons when there are notifications. Those who have used this in launchers such as Nova will know that this tells the user how many notifications they have for a certain app. IT certainly would not be the first time Google have use third party apps for inspiration when developing Android.

Picture-in-picture mode like Android TV

Last year Google released a picture-in-picture mode for Android TV but not for Android itself. Rumour has it that Google will be bringing this to Android proper. Many apps have also included this in their code — for example the Cricket Australia app has it for their streaming TV.

Smart text selection floating toolbar with Assistant integration

This rumour is basically that Google will be bringing better text selection to Android O and that Google Assistant will be used to make this better. Apparently it will bring up a floatig text selection toolbar with Google assistant features when required. These will possibly be integrated with finger/knuckle gestures to enable faster and easier use.

Restricted background activities from apps, like Chrome 57

The bane of many Android users experience is often the rogue app which consumes a lot of resources while running in the background. Just as Google introduced recently to Chrome that restricts the amount of CPU an app can consume while running in the background they are expected to bring this to Android. Apps that require to run in the background such as some messaging apps and music apps will obviously need to be excluded. The end result should be an extended battery life.

Tons of enterprise stuff

Apparently there will be “tons of enterprise stuff” as Google attempt to make a bigger push into the enterprise market. Whether this is improved security or functionality is unknown but Google have signalled their desire for a greater share of the enterprise segment in the past so this rumour is not unexpected.

All of the above information is rumoured only of course and 9to5Google have a confidence level of 7 out of 10 for its accuracy. Their source has been right many times which leads them to this level of confidence. With Android O coming later in the year there is plenty of time for a lot more rumours and if we do get developer builds then we will know much more, very soon.

What do you think will be a big feature of Android O? What are you hoping they bring?