Android O: What's new and why it's been introduced

Eclaire, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean, Kit Kat, Lollipop, Marshmallow, and Nougat. If you thought that was just a list of various sweet treats, well, you're not wrong, but it's also a list of Android version names. And if you guessed that the next version of Android starts with O, well you're exactly right because Google themselves have announced Android O – the latest version of Android. 

So, what's new in the O version of Android? Let's find out. 

Notifications have always been one of Android's biggest strengths. Notifications on Android are informative, versatile, and customizable so they fit their users' need. Google clearly understands this and has kept improving the notification system of Android. They have overhauled how the notifications look, made notifications more interactive, and given users a way to manage the importance of each notification. So, of course, for this version of Android, Google added even more features to the notification system. 

The biggest feature added to the notification system on Android O is the Notification Channel. Basically, Notification Channel is an API that allows developers to define categories for notifications from their apps. App users will then be able to control the setting for each category of notifications. This way, users can fine tune applications so they only show notifications that the users think are important. 

For example, let's say you have a chat application and it has 2 notification channels. The first channel is for notifying users when a new chat message arrives and the second one is for when the user is added to someone else's friend list. Some users may only care about the new chat messages, so they can turn off certain types of notifications instead of turning of all notifications from the app. 

Other features added to Android O notification system is Notification Snoozing and Notification Timeout. Just like in alarm, Notification Snoozing allows the user to snooze a notification and let it reappear later when the user has time. Meanwhile, Notification Timeout allows developers to set a timeout duration for the notifications. Imagine that you want to notify a user about a flash sale that only runs for 2 hours. By adding timeout, the notification can remove itself when the event is over.

Okay, enough about notifications – what else is new in Android O? 

Autofill Framework 

One of the newest things introduced with Android O is the Autofill Framework. You know how browsers can remember your full name, email address, home address, and other stuff and automatically fill in a registration form with that data? Well, the same capability is coming to Android apps via the Autofill Framework. An app can also register itself as an Autofill Service. For example, if you made a social media app, you can let other apps use the user's account data from your app to help users fill their forms. 

Account data 

Speaking of account data, with Android O, Google has removed the ability for developers to get user's account data using the GET_ACCOUNT permission, forcing developers to use the account chooser dialog instead. So with Android O, developers can no longer automatically fill in a text field with the user's email address and name, and have to let users pick accounts on their own. 

And it's not just form filling that gets reworked. In an effort to improve battery life and phone performance, Android O has added a number of limitations to background processes. For example, on Android O, apps running in the background (that is, apps that don't have any of their interface visible to users) will not be able to get users’ location data as frequently as before. Also, apps in the background can no longer create and use background processes. 

Do keep in mind that some of those limitations will impact any application running on Android O, not just apps that were built using the O version of the SDK. So if you have an app that relies on background processes, you may want to check your app to ensure it works fine on Android O. 

App icons 

Let's talk about something with more visual: App icons. You know how manufacturers add custom skins to their phones to differentiate their products from competitors? Well, some time ago they also changed the shape of all app icons to fit the overall UI of their phones and thisbroke some carefully designed icons. Fortunately, with the Adaptive Icon feature introduced in Android O, developers will be able to design an icon that can adjust to a variety of shapes. 

We've covered a lot, but there are still tons of other features added to Android O that we haven't discussed, including: multi-display support, a new native Audio API, Keyboard Navigation, new APIs to manage WebView, new Java 8 APIs, and more. Do check out the official documentation for those. 

That being said, we're still missing the most important thing: What is going to be the full name for Android O? I can only think of Oreo at the moment. What about you? 

About the author 

Raka Mahesa is a game developer at Chocoarts (chocoarts.com), who is interested in digital technology in general. Outside of work hours, he likes to work on his own projects, with Corridoom VR being his latest released game. Raka also regularly tweets as @legacy99.