Android O Will Thwart Battery-Draining Apps

Google pulled back the curtain on both visible and behind-the-scenes improvements to its next mobile OS, Android O.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—The next version of the Android operating system will be able to launch apps twice as fast, as well as prevent them from hogging a smartphone's battery life and memory.

Google announced those and other improvements to its open-source mobile operating system at its I/O developers conference here on Wednesday. The new Android version, codenamed Android O, is now available as a beta, and the finished version will probably roll out to devices some time this year.

Even though smartphones have transformed daily life for millions of people, these gadgets' daily lives are sometimes woefully short thanks to battery limitations and the fact that some apps (cough cough, Facebook, cough) are notorious power hogs. So Android O will include so-called "wise limits" that will monitor the amount of energy and power that each app is using, and limit an app's access to those resources if it is hogging them.

Other back-end improvements will help Android O launch apps faster with no additional programming work from their developers. Google apps like Sheets launch twice as fast in O as they do in Nougat, the current version, and Google said other apps should see similair results.

For phones with limited memory and resources to begin with, such as those sold in developing markets like India, Google is also working on a separate version of Android called Android Go. It will be the default OS for all Android phones with less than 1GB of memory, and it includes lightweight versions of essential Google apps like YouTube, as well as a modified version of the App Store that will offer access to other streamlined apps.

Meanwhile, Google also announced some improvements to the Android user interface at I/O. They include an updated version of the picture-in-picture mode (below) already available on some Android phones, which opens the door for multitasking opportunities like browsing the web while you're on a video call.

Picture in Picture

The cut-and-paste feature in Android O includes new artificial intelligence algorithms that can automatically detect a long name—Bob's New York Pizza, for instance—and highlight the entire thing when you tap on a single word. If you tap on a name, street address, or phone number, it will also automatically display a suggested app, such as Contacts, or Google Maps. All of the AI processing for these contextual suggestions happens on your phone, so they'll work even if you don't have good cell reception.

Related

Improvements to Autofill in Android O make it compatible with multiple apps, so your saved usernames and passwords in Chrome will also work to log in to Spotify, for example.

Finally, Google is making Android's security features more visible with the new "Protect" moniker on the Google Play store. That signifies that an app has undergone Google's stringent vetting process, which scans more than 50 billion apps for phishing scams and other security threats.

Also at I/O today, Google announced upgrades for Google Home and Google Photos and launched the Google Assistant on iOS. It also teased standalone, Daydream-enabled VR headsets from HTC and Lenovo.

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