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Older Android aficionados might remember the short-term glory of lockscreen widgets. Added with Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and then unceremoniously yoinked with Android 5.0 Lolipop, they allowed you to place your own extra stuff—like the then insanely popular DashClock Widget—right on the lockscreen. After that change, the trend for that level of customization shifted to full lockscreen replacements, most of which broke with changes in overlays as of Android 8.0 Oreo. But the new Ava Lockscreen, designed by the developer that brought you the Bixby button remapper bxActions and Floatify, is built for Oreo from the ground up.
Google can be rather indecisive at times, which often leads to a cycle of adding and removing things from different versions of Android – usually after a user backlash of some sort. With the first developer preview of Android 8.1, Google removed the 'Picture color mode' sRGB toggle from original Pixels and Nexus phones. You'll be pleased to learn that order has now been restored.
It has been a while since the last Android Oreo feature spotlight, but there are apparently still discoveries to be made. Oreo was a pretty substantial update for Android TV, with a new launcher in tow. The update has another change for Android TV - recommended apps during the setup process.
If you have an incredibly detailed memory, you may recall as far back as around 24 hours ago, when we talked about how the "Keep Wi-Fi on during sleep" setting was apparently removed for the Pixel 2s. We felt that it was a confusing, unnecessary, and potentially unintentional change, but Google is doubling down. With the latest Android 8.1 developer preview images, the option is now missing on more than just the Pixel 2, likely confirming that the change was intended.
Calibrated color has been a hot topic recently for both Android and the Pixel 2 phones, and the Android 8.1 developer previews indicate more changes on the horizon. As of the current preview images, the "Picture color mode" sRGB toggle in Developer options has been removed. This change makes devices like the OG Pixels and last-generation Nexuses match the new Pixel 2 and 2XL, which similarly lack the setting since a calibrated mode is the default.
The Android 8.1 Oreo developer preview dropped today, and with it come some new features that we've been discovering. One of the more prominent changes we've spotted so far is to the navigation bar while it's in the Settings app. On both Pixel and Nexus devices, the soft keys get a few aesthetic tweaks that modernize the software's look just a little bit.
Developer Options is one of the two hidden settings menus in Android (beside System UI Tuner) and it gets enabled by tapping the Build Number in the About Phone section repeatedly. In previous versions of Android, Developer Options had one toggle up top that let you disable it and thus return all values to their default, but in Oreo, disabling the toggle also removes the menu entirely.
There is a small problem you can run into when setting up a Wi-Fi hotspot in previous versions of Android. By default, the SSID is just AndroidAP, and a lot of people don't change that. So if your phone, tablet, or laptop connected to such an access point in the past, they'd try again every time they saw that Android AP SSID. But as of Android 8.0 Oreo, any devices that never ran a previous version of Android will get a unique hotspot SSID.
One of Android Oreo's best features is Picture-in-Picture mode for phones and tablets. When you press the home button while playing media (on an app that supports PiP), the video collapses to a floating window that you can move around the screen. YouTube is one of the few apps that support this feature already, but it's only enabled if you pay for YouTube Red. Thankfully, there is a way to force PiP mode for any app that supports it, including YouTube and Google Maps.
One of Android Oreo's new features is the ability to automatically turn Wi-Fi back on when you're near a saved network. Essentially, Android will keep track of where each network is located, and will use location services to only turn on Wi-Fi when you're in range. The feature was available for all devices on the Android O Developer Previews, but was disabled in the final release for the Nexus 5X and 6P:
Friday saw the launch of video submissions by Local Guides, some of which are already popping up. But that wasn't the only thing to come with the v9.60 update, the Picture-in-Picture mode added in the last update has been fixed and now offers a useful window into your trip while you're using other apps. There are also several new topics for a teardown, including personal notes for locations, food reviews with photo submissions, and much more.
One of Android Oreo's many new features is a persistent notification for each app that runs in the background. While this is certainly helpful for the average person, it can get old quick for power users that frequently run applications like Tasker and LastPass. If the messages really get on your nerves, you can now use Tasker and the Notification Listener plugin to hide them.
Wi-Fi networks that use Captive portals (like a Sign In page) can be a real headache. You connect to them, and then try to figure out why nothing is loading, and finally Android shows the 'Sign in to network' popup. Starting with Android O, the Settings app makes it more obvious that you are connected to a public Wi-Fi network.
I'm personally not a huge fan of Android O's updated set of emoji, and judging by our poll from last month, neither are many of you. But in case you ever want to use them in your own projects, Google has uploaded all of them to GitHub.
Yesterday the network camera management app tinyCam Monitor PRO was updated to v9, bringing a ton of new features like MP4 recording to FTP servers, 'Webhooks on motion' for motion-detecting automation, and additional support for features in Android 8.0 Oreo such as adaptive icons and PiP, among a tremendous list of changes. To celebrate the occasion, it's even on sale for 50% off at just $1.99.
Android 8.0 Oreo includes several changes to how background processes work, in order to squeeze even more battery life out of your device. One of these is the Background Execution Limit, which imposes new rules on what apps can do in the background. By default, the new limits only apply to apps targeting Android 8.0, but you can force it on older apps as well.
[Update: Name likely Oreo] Google has an Android O event on August 21st to coincide with the eclipse
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- Based on the filename for a video Google recently posted via Google+ (GoogleOreo_Teaser_0817_noDroids (1).mp4), odds are high the next release of Android will be given the name Oreo.
Today it has been revealed that Android O, the next major version of Google's operating system, will be "touching down" (and likely shown off) on August 21st at 2:40 PM ET via a livestreamed event from New York City. The wait is nearly over. In just a few more days those of us with supported devices might even be enjoying the latest and greatest release of Android. But at a minimum, we should know a lot more about it.
One of the big advancements in Android O will be support for the new Project Treble system framework. This modular approach to Android could accelerate the update process and ensure devices are supported for longer. However, we've been hearing that Treble would only work on new devices that ship with Android O. The exception to that being the 2016 Pixels. Google engineers revealed on a podcast today that some other devices could get Treble in an update, too.
ASUS isn't always the best with updates. The company often releases phones with already-outdated software, like the ZenFone 3 Zoom that came with Marshmallow. In a similar vein, the ZenWatch 2 and 3 were some of the last watches to get Android Wear 2.0. But at the ZenFone 4 launch event, ASUS promised that the entire ZenFone 3 and 4 lineup would get Android O.
In a recent interview that was published on the OnePlus forums, the head of product at OnePlus revealed that Android O would be the last major update that the OnePlus 3 and 3T would see. However, the company remains committed to providing security updates for the foreseeable future. He further revealed that the OnePlus 3 and 3T should see OxygenOS v4.5 within the next few months.