Android M: What's new?

Google has now started a new trend if releasing the developer previews of the next android iterations in the Google i/o event every year and as expected we have the successor to android lollipop with the name starting from the letter "M". The Android M developer preview was released with major tweaks and optimizations that were much required to get the optimum from your Android.

App Permissions

In android lollipop and previous version we had to give apps all the permissions it needs it needs to function and we had no control on single permission like camera, or sms that we could deny or permit as we wanted. With android M Google has given the user the control to set permission to each of the phone component from hardware like camera, microphone to software details like sms, contact etc. Cyanogenmod users might know this very well with the privacy guard that has been implemented by cyanogen way back in android kitkat itself.

Battery Life

Google had promised "project Volta" in lollipop which promised optimizations to battery and deliver great battery life. But it was seldom the case as many users didn't get what was expected and battery life was rather degraded in lollipop from kitkat for many users. One thing to notice is that in lollipop the Android learns users usage and tries to optimize the battery and performance, which means the performance and battery improves as you use the lollipop more and more. 

With android M Google introduced a new feature called "doze" , which must give the battery life effectively longer. This new feature doze identifies the apps activities and puts it to sleep if not used for long times. This increases the standby time significantly. 

Android M also offers things like built-in fingerprint scanning support,Built-in fingerprint scanner support, USB type c support although this needs a device with the suitable hardware to test. 

The fingerprint security support is given to developers also through an API to implement it to their apps for enhanced security.

Improved copy, paste

Now we get a floating toolbox with copy, cut and paste options on text selection. The text selection also is now word by word for easy selection. 

The new volume controls are back as it was on android kitkat. The do not disturb button is moves to quick toggles.

Google Now on tap

Google now has a lot of functionality that gives useful data and searches as per our usage and is getting a whole lot better. The most amazing of all is the new Google Now which pretty much works from any screen by long pressing the home button. The Google now reads texts and contents on the current screen to give context based suggestions directly on that screen. Google uses its huge data base and this should be very helpful. The Google now launcher is now vertically scrolling page with most recently used apps at the top and a search bar. The apps are sorted alphabetically in vertical order.

There are lot of other tweaks and improvements to the Android which should help in performance and stability. The inbuilt features should also gives us a idea of what features the next nexus will come with. Most of the features are used from. Custom rom or OEM's skin and there's no any visual overhauls this time around.