What Are The Best Features Of Android M?

Android M, unveiled at this year’s Google I/O,  is still somewhat of an exciting mystery for most users. We’ve all heard that it will have a few key new features, quite a number of user experience improving small tweaks and an overall touch of Android awesomeness.

In this post, we are taking a closer look at Android M and what comes with it.

Doze

This is a much talked about feature that promises a significant increase of standby time for your Android devices, whether smartphones or tablets. What the feature does is use the sensors of your device to determine whether it is being idle. If it turns out to be so, Doze will cut all the background processes, app updates and other battery-consuming activity, so that when you return to your smartphone or tablet, you won’t find them drained to the bone, but actually with plenty of juice in store.

Google Now On Tap

This one is arguably the most important update of Android M. You have probably already heard a lot about how the feature works – but, in any case, here it is. You can now hold down the Home button, no matter which application you are in and what you are doing, and bring up Google Now cards, related to the information on the screen. If you are reading about a new movie, you can bring up its rating on Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB or cast information with one tap. Getting an email from a friend about dinner in a particular restaurant will bring up Yelp reviews for the place in question and so on. You get the idea. The best thing about the upgrade is that you don’t have to interrupt what you are doing to look for the extra info as Now On Tap will do all the work for you by “reading” the screen and suggesting additional information or actions within the app you’re in.

For more about Now On Tap, read our post on A Closer Look At Google Now On Tap.

Android Pay

Keeping up with Joneses ( the Joneses in this case being Apple Pay and Samsung Pay), Android Pay has been revamped and is ready to make your life easier. You can now use your Android smartphone to pay via NFC terminals – quick and easy. Around 700, o00 stores in the US are currently accepting these types of payments, but we can surely expect an increase in that number. Developers are also encouraged to add Android Pay as a payment option for their apps and upgrades, so if you are looking for a new way to spend – here you have it.

 Photos App

We do love those selfies. Android is well aware of that and the new Photos app comes with all the right tools for better mobile photography. With the new app, you will get better photo grouping without any particular involvement on your part. The application will sort your pictures  by places, people, dates and more and will even let you ((here’s where you can feel Google) search photos by keywords. You will have more editing tools at your disposal, and, what’s more important – unlimited storage space on Google +. So, if you haven’t signed up for the network yet – Android M should give you at least one good reason to do so.

In addition to the “big” upgrades, Android M comes with quite a number of small yet essential tweaks, that together aim to create that perfect user experience we are all so longing for.

So what are these small upgrades?

• Android M lets you have a better control of the volume setting (which was a common complaint in Android 5.0). You can still adjust the volume with the side button, but with a few upgrades. Turning the volume all the way down, will get your phone into Silent Mode. If you keep pressing the button, your phone will go into the Do Not Disturb Mode. You will also have a mini drop down menu to custom- control the volume for different apps, like media, alarm clock, etc.

• Native fingerprint reading. This upgrade will let you log into your smartphone with your fingerprint, sign into certain apps, use Android Pay, buy apps from the Play Store and more. Taking into consideration that it is an open API, we may see many more applications incorporating fingerprint reading into their system soon enough.

• Individual permission control for apps. Whereas before you only had the choice of approving or rejecting the app that is asking you for permissions, you will not be able to control the permissions of a particular app individually: turning off the ones you find suspicious and enabling the ones you approve of.

For more on apps and software, check our other posts here.