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Android N: release date, news and features

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Comments (25)
  1. Prof. Roxanne Herman says:

    Can we have the moderators remove this post? Threatening bodily harm is one thing, but the K word is altogether different.

  2. Anabelle Streich says:

    This is the only area i prefer Apple, once a firmware update has been released everyone gets it, with android it takes nearly 2 years for everyone to get, i bet i get it on my Z3 a month before 7.0 comes out and then ill get that in 2019. not good sony, not good samsung, not good htc and the rest of you.

  3. Alexie Braun says:

    If you can't move on from this then that's your problem I'm proud to be #teamapple because everything 'just works' better, you're an Android fanboy, like I care less if you talk to me or not. Stick your Android or samsung or whatever Lagdroid you use where the sun don't shine. Moron!

  4. Mona Deckow PhD says:

    I'm not going to move on from a security breach like that. It's unacceptable, and won't ever be acceptable. You're an Apple apologist, so you're not worth talking to.

  5. Gunner Halvorson says:

    Exactly, that's how I felt, iOS is simply missing waaaaayyyy to many features for my liking. I'm not even taking about customization, no, important fearures like file managememt are treated as second class citizens. However the response I always get from iOS users is that it's the future, I aure hope not, I mean just moving files around in iOS is a complete nightmare, I had more copies of copies than on any system I've ever used. I couldn't even download a large file in the background, the OS kept terminating the connections after 10 minutes. I seriously do not understand how people can use that OS, their new iPad Pro is the definition of Compromise. Tim Cook had the audacity to come out and say that notebooks with touchscreens are a stupid idea because the user has to constantly reach up and over the keyboard to use the touch display. Uhm, Mr. Cook, what do you think iPad Pro users are doing, an Apple insignia doesn't automatically make it any better, at least with a notebook you can use the trackpad. iOS doesn't even support a mouse, heck you can't even use their new Pencil to navigate the system UI with, compromise should be changed to Applemise.

  6. Adrienne Hills says:

    Android is garbage compared to iOS because of its fluidity, simplicity, consistency and reliability. Android is simply a POS OS.

  7. Marisol Collins says:

    I'm not sure why they removed the option but I never minded as simply pulling down the quick settings menu will reveal it and there are plenty of third party solutions available, specifically custom lauchers in which I think are a must. At least you can do things like this, iOS users are stuck with whatever blesses their users wirh. Though all of that said, Android 6 and 7 do have it built in, just enable the development options and you'll find your option for enabling battery percentage.

  8. Duane Dickinson V says:

    "NFC was useless until Apple Pay." I used my NFC to pay for McDonald's in backwoods nowhere Tennessee in 2012 on my Galaxy S3. The 16 year old yokel'e eyes git huge and he asked me "Is that the new iPhone?" Guess what I got to tell him… So, by useless, you mean "not?"

  9. Joshuah Reinger DDS says:

    I know I get better value using Apple along with with better support than with anything with Android (except maybe stock but that's still Android), who are Blackberry? Oh that company the used to be all the rage before it was crushed by the iPhone. Blackberry sucks now and nobody cares about thr Blackberry Priv. Apple is worth maybe 30 times what Blackberry is worth, keep your crapberry to yourself, I'm using a real phone while you're using a rehash of an ancient phone. No go and kill yourselve along with your crapberry. Idiot!

  10. Ms. Mina Mayer DVM says:

    And they have moved on from it and so should you.

  11. Rhea Runolfsdottir says:

    That's what the Nexus line is for, I absolutely adore my new Nexus 6P and Nextbit Robin. Also, never, ever buy a phone through a contract, it's just a complete waste of money and you're at the mercy of the mobile carriers for updates.

  12. Mr. Aurelio Stanton DDS says:

    I too use my stock Samsung browser. It works pretty darned well and has a fairly clean interface.

  13. Thelma Goyette says:

    iPhone 5C better than the Nexus 6, really, wow. I have a Nexus 6 and now the new Nexus 6P. One of the best phones I have ever used. I owned one iPhone in my life , the 5s and that was enough to cure me form ever buying another one. iOS has just way to many compromises and missing to many features. My Nokia 9500 from 2004 still has capabilities that the iPhone 6s can't do, like run every app I'm the background and a real file-system, in which iOS has the absolute worst file-management system I have ever used. Yeah, I really don't understand why people like iOS so much. By the way, my Nexus 6 had zero lag but I was also running a custom version of Android that I compiled myself. I embedded Arch Linux running in a Chroot so I could use it as a desktop computer at work, worked absolutely perfectly.

  14. Lindsay Turner says:

    For the record, if you haven't used an alternative, what you have isn't your "favorite" but your "only option."

  15. Miss Lelah Leuschke says:

    Better value? HA!!!! How much does it take to build an iPhone? $242.50 USD, about for the 6 Plus. Remind me again, how much they charge. Oh yeah, $700 or more.

    I don't care what your idiotic fanboy mind thinks about the phones that real professionals, high-discretion employees, government workers across the globe, and security minded people actually use.

    A real phone? How? You can't even find out how many times Facebook probes your location. You can't have a unified inbox for your messages. I bet you can't type faster than 20 WPM on the software keyboard. You can't use NFC tags. You can't even tap-to-pair with bluetooth devices. Oh yeah, you don't have a physical keyboard. Finally, the iPhone is a child's toy. Go back to your mom and dad's basement and never come back out. I'm going to flag your comment for what it's worth due to your pathetic attempt to say "kill yourself" to me, because it's the most childish thing I've read on a disqus page.

  16. Broderick Koelpin says:

    Right I have never had a single malware, hack, etc. on any of my phone's. These comments are made by people who want to ellivate their choice of device as the right and only choice. iOS is a prison, at least that's my opinion, it also doesn't have a quarter of the features Android has. I mean it took Apple 8 years to even release a function in order for files to be shared other apps. I was doing this in 2001 with my Nokia Communicator. You still can't run apps in the background, or at least none that actually matter and the file system is just a complete nightmare.

  17. Vickie Pfeffer says:

    At least I can download a friggen file with Chrome and I've never experienced any of the lag your talking about. In fact, when I'm typing a comment using an iOS device, I have to write it an app like Word because if I receive a call while typing directly in Safari, the moment I return to finish, the site is has been refreshed loosing all of my work in the process and this is on an iPad Pro with 4GB of RAM? Breathe of fresh air, yea, from a ventilator as iOS is so hacked together with API's in order to do even the most basic of functions, it feels like being on life support.

  18. Halle Sipes says:

    For the record, no app I have ever loaded "tried to [take] over [my] phone." Can you explain what you mean? Also, have you ever owned an Android phone and seen this behavior first hand, or are you regurgitating what you read on [insert random website here]? I'm not trying to be a jerk, here, I sincerely would like to know these answers.

  19. Maryse Waters says:

    ooooo getting the angry acronyms out bennie boiiiii

  20. Dr. Fanny Gleason I says:

    iOS's idea of simplicity is simply to not add any features to it. In reality though, iOS is far from simplistic, for example; transferring files between apps is so convoluted with unnecessary steps that's enough to give someone an aneurysm. After a single day with my iPad Pro I had so many copies of copies from Sharing files between apps that I had no idea which one was the latest, with no way of searching for files within all of my apps, I simply just gave up on the iPad Pro all together. When I downloaded a file from Chrome, in which I was forced to use because Safari doesn't even support downloading of files, than Shared it to MS Word, that was 2 files created, after I was finished editing, I than sent it to a zip app, number 3, after sending the zipped file via an email, I than moved the file to OneDrive, 4th file created as every time you Share a file, a copy is sent and the original stays. On what planet is that considered as simple. In Android, all of my cloud storage, NAS, FTP and other computers on the network are mounted as local drives. So when I downloaded the same file, I chose the OneDrive virtual drive to save the file to, than using FX File Explorer I just simply clicked on, Open With, selected Word which is the same version that iOS has. When finished editing I clicked saved, the file was already in my OneDrive so I than just went back to FX, zipped the file and emailed it, done, again all from a single app, only one file ever created. Trying to find multiple files with a name of a person embedded inside the file itself, from multiple apps, cloud storage, than zipping all them, took me about 20 minutes to do in iOS, Android, less than 2 min. Ugh, just everything file related in iOS is an absolute horror show, my Nokia Communicator from 12 years ago has a better file management system.

    Consistently, Android is now 10x more consistent than iOS do to the Material design language, something in which almost every app developer is now using giving continuity to the system. All of the menus are the same, layout, look, etc. iOS is chaotic, every app is an all for one affair with no real guidlines to follow, at least none that developers are following. Even Apples own apps have really no connection between each other. Again, dealing with files, since apps have to manage their own files, every single interface is different, cloud storage, some apps have support for one cloud service, some others, and so and so forth. Android, I can use all of my cloud service within every single app directly, without having to Share, making another friggen copy in order to upload a file to a cloud storage that’s not listed in the Share list. A list by the way that is populated by app developers manually, who have to create a share profile for each of their apps, Android creates it’s share to lists dynamically by automatically searching for supported apps in the background. Being able to choose which cloud service gets what data is important because they all have their strengths, my photos go to Google Drive because it's free to store an unlimited amount of photos, in which I have over 3GB worth. OneDrive is for my movies, as I have a 1TB contract and OneDrive has the absolute best online video streaming interface, it even converts files in real-time so you can still view files like .mkv, and so on. The dual apps view, only about 140 apps or so actually support it as of right now, yes, more and more app developers are writing in support but it's already been 5 months since it’s release and not even 1% of the apps in the Apple App Store support it. In Android, after I enabled multi-window, which is built into Android 6, just disabled because it’s in Beta, however works just fine, once enabled, every single app was supported. Only about 80% of the apps I had installed on the iPad Pro actually supported its resolution instead they were all Pixel doubled. Apps in iOS are independent resolution, causing even more inconsistencies, especially when you connect a external display, which be the way has got to be the worst experocnr I have seen as of yet. First the aspect ratio and resolution was supported, so everything looked blurry and I had these black bars, than their was the weird DPI, it was just huge and looked cartoonist, lastly, iOS deosn’t support extending the desktop, just mirroring so the iOS device becomes useless. Both my Nexus 6 and Pixel C have a USB C port so I just use my MacBook 12” USB C Hub which has 2 USB 3, HDMI, Ethernet and a SD Card Reader. Everything works flawlessly and is supported, resolution, aspect ratio, I can use a custom DPI to make it look more like desktop UI and I can extend the desktop so both displays are useable. The Pixel C also supports 4K so I can use my 27” 4K ThinkVision TouchScreen monitor with it. Since it also has mouse support, which iOS also doesn’t support. Plus, because the Pixel C uses Linux GPU drivers, I’ve installed Arch Linux in a Chroot under Android and am running full Linux Applications with GPU acceleration, they work great, turning the Pixel C into a useable workstation. The iPad Pro, just absolutely sucked as a productivity machine, didn’t even come close to the Pixel C’s capabilities.

    Now, you might not have an iPad Pro but these problems still reside in every single iOS device. Why, well every time Apple releases a new feature in iOS, it takes at least 6 months until most of the top apps get support for these new features, however a lot of, actually the bulk of the apps take even longer, with many that don’t even bother. Take 3D touch, besides the top 100 apps, most of the rest still do not have support for it. Again, this all falls under inconsistencies and will never change for the better until iOS fixes their crazy sandboxing paradigm, their so called Walled Garden.

    Android is reliable, my 6P hasn’t had a single app crash since I bought it, not a one and I’m running Android 7 on it now, which is in Beta. The same thing with my Nexus 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 and even my new Pixel C which is absolutely bullet proof. Since I also use the launcher Smart Launcher 3, my apps are all organized in categories, which means finding files is quick and easy. In iOS, even now that you can search for apps, it’s a mess. You can’t even setup a home screen in which you can put your most used apps on, just an endless scroll of apps.

    Fluidity, since Android 4.4.4 I haven’t seen anything that could be construed as lag, however I've also never bought a budget Android phone in which these reports of lag are coming from. Some apps do take a while to load, however iOS has the same exact issue with these types of apps, it’s the app developers fault, not the OS's.

    Another huge problem I had with iOS was not being able to run apps in the background. Even if you don’t think you need this ability, this problem causes things like Safari refreshing it’s pages if you switch to another app for more than a couple of minutes and than return back. Even on an iPad with 4GB of RAM I had to use MS Word to write up my posts because I kept loosing my work. With every single Android device I've owned, I was able to write posts longer than this, without posting them for an entire day, than go back to them at my leisure when I get home from work. Still there, waiting to be finished, waiting to be posted. Even the most simple of tasks like downloading a file is hugely compromised because of this problem, if your downloading a file in the background and it takes longer than 10 minutes to do, well, you're SOL, iOS just terminates the download. Sure, there is a resume button but this doesn’t rectify or justify the problem, also, it only works 1 out of 10 times. Haven’t you ever wanted to use your device while streaming a video to your TV wirelessly and not have iOS stop the film your watching simply because you started up Safari, I haven’t used an OS so awful at multitasking , since a decade and a half ago with Mac OS 9.2, in which you were able to pause the entire system by just holding down the mouse button. How people used Mac OS pre OSX for so long is beyond me. I jumped ship at OS 7.5.5 and went to SGI. When a device like the Psion 5 MX has a more powerful OS than a $3,000 PowerBook, you know something is wrong.

    Lastly and this put the biggest nail in iOS’s coffin fro me, the inability to change my own default apps, it’s Apple’s apps or nothing. So everytime I click on a link, Safari open’s up, I don’t want to use Safari, it’s archaic and I can’t even download a file with it, useless, an eMail address, Apple Mail, again, useless as it’s the very definition of minimum, etc. In Android, the first time I click on a file or link, it asks me, which app do I want to use to open this file with and if I want to use it for now on every time I click on such a file. This isn’t complexity, these are what’s called features, running a simple terminal in the backround all day long because you need to monitor trades coming through from the exchange that is all based off of Unix, features, connecting to a monitor and expecting everything to be supported, features, searching for every file you have on your system by simply saying, show me all of my files with the name “blah” in it. Wait, I’’ stop here for a second, how can I do that, It’s not part of Google’s, “Google Now” technology, except that it is. I can assign any command I want to a voice command, even a Python script. I can trigger an automated script every time a certain email comes through with an attached file that contains data from a clearing house, calculate said data, create an Excel sheet and than resend it, all in the background, all, again automated. iOS users can only dream of having this kind of automation and scripting capabilities. Yes, this is Pro level stuff but when I buy a device with the name Pro behind it, I expect that device to be able to do the types of things. Look, my Nokia 9500 Communicator from 2004 could do that exact same thing , so this isn’t some crazy request. Again, you’re probably thinking that you would never have any reason to have any of this and that you just want a simple phone, that’s great and all, for you, but there are many who do want these things as they have enormous value for those who work smart by automating repetitive tasks. iOS only gives people like me a fraction of what we need.

    I’m happy that you enjoy your iPhone, for me though iOS is a prison, missing even the most basic features and frankly just can’t hold a candle to Android. Android 7 just makes things even better. Pretty isn’t everything. Good luck in your future endeavors.

  21. Willis Kemmer says:

    You'll be much better of coming to iOS and iPhone, Google has lost control of Android that is clear for all to see.

  22. Missouri McCullough says:

    So who do they have in mind when these features aren't even close to what Android provides. Examples; instead of implementing a decent file-management system in which all files are stored in a central location, with decent file-managers to manage these files with. iOS leaves all of that pesky file-management to the apps, which results in not only an inconsistent experience but dealing with files I'm general is probably the worst I have ever seen in a modern OS, I mean something as simple as opening a file within another app, the user has to use a feature thay I've only ever used for posting content to Social Media as it's only mechanism to open files within multiple apps, resulting of course in multiple files of the same file being created as the Share function just sends a copy, not the original, making it impossible to keep track of which file is the most recent. Simple functions such as searching for files, zipping multiple files from multiple apps, assigning a file extensiom to a default apps, ugh, just about everything file related in iOS just absolutely sucks. I mean I had to use Chrome to download a camp pamphlet for my son because Safari doesn't support downloading, who designed this thing. Than to add insult to injury, you can't even select your own default apps, it's Apples mediocre apps or nothing as the defaults.

    Multitasking, first, this new dual app view everyone says is so great, only about 140 apps as of yet are actually supported, that's less than 1% out of the million plus apps in their app Store. Than there is the ability to run apps in the background, sure you can do it but only a few GPS and music playback apps (last time I used an OS that couldn't do this was ironically, also an Apple OS, MacOS 9.2 in which you were able to bring the entire system to a standstill simply by holding down the mouse button), however the rest of the apps you have installed, well, your SOL. I was dumbfounded after trying to run a simple terminal app in the background and iOS kept terminating the connection to the remote server in which I was connected to, my Nokia 9500 Communicator from 2004 was even able to run all of it's apps in the background and with only 128MB of RAM.

    Now before you post a reply on the lines of well most people don't need this, the goto answer for a lot of Apple enthusiasts when a certain feature isn't available. I was using an iPad Pro, a supposed Pro device with 4GB of memory, which again, every OS I've used, even Windows NT 3.1 could do. I couldn't even stream a video to my TV and still be able to use the tablet, every time I opened up an app like Chrome to see the list of actors from the film I was watching, the film just stopped playing. With my new Pixel C, the computer I replaced the iPad Pro with, I can download a file that takes longer than 10 minutes to download, which is the max time a browser can download something in the background before iOS, like the terminal app, terminates whatever you were doing, while encoding a video file to .MP4, which is 10x faster than the iPad Pro to do since the Pixel C is using Linux GPU drivers instead of the normal Android ones. Which means I can run my CLI (command line) CUDA applications, such as my custom encoder, that utilizes all 256 CUDA cores in the Nvidia X1, the iPad Pro uses it's CPU to do it, no Open CL support or at least no direct access to it, while I stream a video to my TV directly( from OneDrive which is mounted as a local drive along with the rest of my cloud storage accounts. NAS, FTP and other computers on the network), to my 4K TV (4K is supported) via HDMI which is connected through a USB C Hub with; 2 USB 2, HDMI, Ethernet, SD Card Reader, same one available for the MacBook 12", while my son plays Modern Combat 5, all at the same time with zero lag. This is true multitasking, not viewing a couple of apps at the same time in timy wimdows in which you can't even read the text.

    External display support. I'm not sure why Apple even bothered as not only wasn't my monitors aspect ratio and resolution not supported, but the desktops DPI was cartoonishly big, plus I couldn't extend the desktop to make use of both displays, just mirror it. The Pixel C not only supports my 4K monitors aspect ratio and resolution but using an app called, "Second Display", I am able to modify the desktops DPI, so it looks more like a normal desktop OS, if you've seen iOS's desktop when connected to a monitor, you would know why this feature is so important, especially if your going to be using your device as a desktop computer, which you can't do with an iOS device, no mouse support, just one compromise after another with OS. Lastly I am also able to extend the desktop, giving me two displays to work with.

    Wow, I just realized how long this post has gotten, so I'll end it here by just saying, I really do not like iOS, it's am extremely frustrating system, in which even the most simply tasks are a chore. When it takes a manufacturer 8 years to come up with a way to share files between applications, there is something inheritantly wrong with that OS, in this case that problem is Apple's sandboxing paradigm. Until Apple looses their so called, Walled Garden, iOS will always be a complete POS.

  23. Henri Sanford Jr. says:

    Same here, with my Nokia N950, N9, 808 Pureview, I was buying train tickets, using it grocery stores, kiosks, vending machines, etc. I swear, people act as if Apple created mobile pay. In Switzerland, before NFC, you could buy things with your phone as far back as 2005 by simply scanning a barcode and it would charge your mobile number. I used to pay for gas this way.

  24. Jammie McCullough Sr. says:

    Right, because I'd TOTALLY use the ONE company that rips off Apple lol!!!!! That's such a joke! Don't flatter yourself, and your crappy company called Apple. I use a BlackBerry. You know, a real phone. Running Android, with a physical keyboard. 🙂

  25. Alfredo Kuphal PhD says:

    These problems don't exist with the Nexus lime and Google will eventually be releasing their own phone. Unfortunately iOS just isn't an option for me as it's missing to many critical features. Such as running apps I'm the background, a viable file-management system , the ability to open files directly from the system, the ability to mount all of my remote storages as local drives, support for my monitor, mouse, external HD, etc. This list actually goesmon for a while, I'm also not a big fan of iOS's look, it's frankly outdated looking.

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