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Android N update: release date, news and features

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Comments (25)
  1. Esta Durgan says:

    You're right. He must be new to this. I keep my BlackBerry Priv pretty empty, but the fact I CAN is what's important, you know?

  2. Ella Stracke 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.

  3. Mr. Zackery Connelly says:

    I hope people finally realizes something. N is out in a test version for some Nexus devices already. It's finnished enough to let people try it. So google has been working on it, and working on driver for it, for a few months. The final release candidate wont be out for a few months.

    In other words google has an enourmous head start with every new Android version.

    It's not just the skinning process. Drivers has to be made for many components, as google do not make a complete library.
    Besides, some other makers have for example managed to give us better battery life with pretty much the same hardware as found in nexus devices. Meaning that google hasn't even perfected those drivers.
    So even if it's frustrating, you should have to expect to wait for a few months. It's google fault. They could have shared upcoming android versions earlier. They could also have written more drivers. And they could have gotten their hands on to some of the best selling devices, and written a base version including drivers and all for that device, to hand over to the maker, so that they do not have to start from scratch, everytime a new android version is released.

    Or if google does not want to work closer with other companies earlier in to the process of the new OS. They should hold off the release, and not officially release it for a few months, so they can't have a joint release together with other makers. Nexus devices could get a fully functional release candidate, but not the final release, earlier. This would have the advantage of giving Google the time to discover and fix some issues. Google 6.1 was pretty much released before any other brand came even with 6.0 on their devices. And 6.0 releases that had been in the works got cancelled for the 6.1 version. That still hasn't seens it's way to many devices that wasnt delivered with it.

    And those skins some complain about them. Many features that Google introduces to new android versions has been around in the form of skins, already. So those help driving the evolution of Android.
    If I'm not misstaken, initially Google wanted other companies to help develop android, but they gave that up, long before android felt complete, and before it became big. Today other compnaies would have perhaps been more interested in helping developing new versions. But on the other hand, they would probably still want skins to differentiate themselves. And some features Google would probably not pick up, at least not initially, so there would be exclusive features in those skins anyhow.

    Those that complain about bloatware.
    Well google has that to. Really, the only thing that should come on a bloat-less device is an app-store (Google Play), the rest should be up to the user, or at least you should be able to un-install everything else (but that ususally leaves files in the system, so you are not completely free from that app, even though it now perhpas only uses KB of memory, or maybe 1MB or so).
    Many of the biggest apps in your device, even an older Samsung devices that was critizied for having a lot of bloat, will be google Apps. So the rest of the bloat would be less of a problem, if we werent forced to have those google apps.

    I agree that you should be able to delete any app you dont want, but that should be true for google apps as well. And I think it's unfair to complain about bloat on every device but the nexus devices, when they clearly have bloatware as well. Just less of it (some of the biggest blotwares, but most other makers have the google bloat + a little or a lot of other bloatwares as well).

  4. Cierra Kuphal says:

    fruity fanboy GTFO

  5. Daniela Tillman DDS says:

    @benjamin owuye jagun @onstrike112
    Right I even side load stuff into my 2015 Sony 4K Android TV outside of the allowed Sony Android TV apps in the Google play store !

    Bennie must be a tech newbie or maybe tech ignorant and just parrots what he reads .

    We already know he's a fruit phone fanboy

  6. Dr. Isabel Connelly says:

    I guess if you live in your car ,somebody's basement or a third world s* hole a smartphone /fruity phone
    is a big deal TBH they ain't worth talking about much in my world as long as they do what I ask of them when I pull them outta pocket or pick them up and usually all that outside of a simple phone call is much better on my desktop PC ,my HP Elite book or smart TV away .

    I can even do voice search ,Bluetooth or plug in a mouse and keyboard to my 4K Sony Android smart TV along with web browsing and doing a zillion other Android things including controlling home security ,climate and Home automation with the Sony Android TV !

  7. Cristobal Glover 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. Myles D'Amore says:

    "NFC was useless until Apple Pay."

    WTF U think Apple pay is other than a fruity NFC Pay …the underlying technical ISO/IEC protocols & communication standards are the same thing just like OS X is nix based

    ^^^That's why Apple Pay works at NFC terminals that service friuty pay to begin with they didn't invent the NFC wheel here i.e,
    2002 Sony and Philips agreed to establish a technology specification and created a technical outline on March 25, 2002. -Wikipedia-

  9. Bo Mayert 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.

  10. Savanna Grimes says:

    Firefox,Chrome or just about anything on a PC beats a fruit phone ….my 4 Core Snapdragon CPU phat screen ZTE Anrdoid phone works fine with Chrome so do some Samsung's I've used and FWIW Samsung was or still is a big friut phone component supplier and used to make all their CPU's .

    OTOH I never seen anything Safari or iTunes that wasn't totally s**tty !

  11. Aubree Mills says:

    Yea a $600.00 – $800.00 fruity smartphone that can't do much of anything a $150.00 -$200.00 ZTE or similar Chinese Android smart phone with a 4 core Snapdragon CPU, Android Gorilla Glass, phat QHD screen ,Dolby Sound can do is real f**ing smart isn't it they are made about the same way and both are Chinese products and may share similar suppy chains ? ☻☻

  12. Salma Hane II says:

    I never had any problems on Android Smartphones like what U are saying or my Android Sony 4K HDR TV either but U keep wasting your money on friuty phones and see how well your retirement works out like that and then get back to us !

    FWIW I'm retired and can afford any phone ,PC or TV
    I want and pay cash them & a new vehicle every 3-4 yrs but I never wasted my money on fruit phones ….
    I invested it instead and used company provided Blackberries and sometimes less expensive personal smartphones and spent my out of pocket $$ on some things more fun like travel ,phat rides ,my cribs or some fun bimbos on weekend get ways now and then .

    No way I'm going to waste 6 or 8 bills on a friut phone,and if I did I would get a Samsung ,Nokia or anything and not something from the GD fruit company anyway….. it's just a GD smart phone and if it ain't you need a life and maybe a phat 4K HDR TV anyway ☻

  13. Darrel VonRueden IV 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.

  14. Dr. Kris Bashirian II 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.

  15. Christ Rohan says:

    yea they got Samsung Pay & Android NFC pay now too !

    ………….So who GAS about fruity pay ?

    NFC been around over 10 yrs and so have smart phones and PC's and mp3 players before Apple ever made them what was the last thing Apple invented …oh s**t ….they haven't invented anything have they ?

    i.e, Steve Jobs ……..Just as big of an idea thief as Thomas Edison ☻☻

    NFC,
    2002 Sony and Philips agreed to establish a technology specification and created a technical outline on March 25, 2002.
    2003 NFC was approved as an ISO/IEC standard on December 8, and later as an ECMA standard.
    2004 Nokia, Philips and Sony established the NFC handset Forum
    2007 Innovision’s NFC tags used in the first consumer trial in the UK, in the Nokia 6131

    -Wikipedia –

    WTF was Apple during all this ?

  16. Emmett Wolf says:

    deleted by user

  17. Olin Mills says:

    Still waiting for Android 6.0 Marshmallow on my 2015 4K Sony Android TV !

  18. Sophie Leffler says:

    This is a preview for Android 7, if you have no interest in the platform than don't post here, it's simply trolling if you do. These types of comments have absolutely zero benefits to the conversation. There are plenty of iOS centric articles, there is no need to come here as well.

  19. Carlo Beahan says:

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

  20. Prof. Jewel Douglas 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.

  21. Carson Stark says:

    Chinese are going to decimate the high dollar fruit phone market with just as capable and well designed phones for a fraction of the cost of a friut phone I already have a new one and it runs fine on Android and has a phat QHD screen ,Dolby sound and 4 core Snapdragon CPU !

    Why U think AAPL is trying to get in the car business they know it ……and so does Wall st !

  22. Mr. Jack Schuster 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.

  23. Alexanne Murray 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. Katharina Kiehn says:

    ooooo getting the angry acronyms out bennie boiiiii

  25. Jada Huel I says:

    f*ing fruity fanboys they everywhere ☻

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