Months and months of wild speculation later we’re finally here—Android M is no longer just a rumour, but an official update (albeit in its early days and nameless, still). We’ll need to wait a few more months till Android M’s formally succeeded Lollipop on the throne, but in the meantime, nothing’s stopping us from going over several updates we’ve chosen among all the highlights presented at Google’s annual I/O conference in San Francisco this Thursday.
Say Goodbye to Tedious App Permissions
Good news, everybody! You’ll no longer need to approve an app’s access every single time, as it was the case with M’s predecessors. Instead, you’ll only have to grant such a permission once. Of course, if you at any point feel like revoking the app’s access, you’ll be able to do it through a settings menu.
Safe Transactions with Android Pay
Much like Apple Pay, Google’s new digital wallet will make it possible for you to make mobile payments, not just in stores, but inside Android applications, too. Also, as it’s the case with Google Wallet, Android Pay doesn’t give out your credit card information when you pay with NFC. Instead, it carries out the transaction through a secure token that gets discarded once you’re done paying.
Dozing Towards Longer Battery Life
All of us smartphone users know just how much of an issue battery life is, so it’s not an exaggeration to say we live in constant fear that our phone battery will die on us any second now. And just as we’re about to send out That E-mail, too. You know the one. Perhaps we’re writing to confirm our job interview attendance or just making important plans for drinks later. And the battery’s just about completely given out on us. To cut the long story short, if there’s anything we can do to try and prolong its longevity, we’ll probably going to go for it.
Luckily, one of Android M’s updates focuses on this problem, as it introduces dozing, a mode triggered when your phone’s sensors establish your device has been inactive for a while. The smartphone then goes in a state of “deeper sleep”, or, as they put it, begins “dozing”. The result seems to be more than positive as Google claims the phone can last twice as long as it does with Lollipop.
Fingerprint Scanner Support on Android M
With the introduction of Android M, native fingerprint scanning is now part of the standard Android package. From the looks of it, devices with fingerprint scanners should be compatible with Android M.
Fleshed Out Volume Control Options
While there’s a few other updates that were presented at the conference yesterday, the one we’ve decided to give our last spot for the day to is volume control. With this particularly useful improvement it is now possible to change the volume for, say, your notifications and alarms, but not music or ringtones. Finally.
Google has deemed Android M “the most polished Android release to date” and, while there aren’t that many additions altogether and we have still some ways to go, so far it seems that all these Lollipop boosts may just be what we’ve been waiting for.