Android O is actually here! After diving into Google's blog post, we fired up our developer tools and loaded Android O on a sacrificial device. There are a few new interesting features, lots of UI tweaks, and plenty of odd bugs and unfinished areas. Let's dive in.

Notifications: Snooze, channels, and a terrible new ambient mode

















My favorite new feature in Android O is the ability to do system-wide notification snoozing. If you don't want to deal with a notification right now, just pull it to the side a bit, which will unveil a new "clock" icon. Tap it, and the notification will be automatically snoozed for 15 minutes. You can tap on the drop-down menu to increase the time to 30 minutes or an hour. This is really handy, but I'd like to be able to customize the times here. I'm sure some people would like a few hours, or maybe a "tomorrow" option. A "type in your time" option would be fine, too.

The top of the notification panel has been reworked yet again. The status bar isn't shown when the notification panel is open, but in Android O, there are now a few status bar elements at the top of the notification panel. You'll see your Wi-Fi, cellular, and battery status, along with the settings gear and the expand button.

We noticed in Google's announcement that a new thing called "Notification Channels" would be in Android O, and now we actually have a good example of them. You can long-press on a notification or dig through the settings and tap on an app's "notification categories" settings, and system UI actually has a working version. Before, you could only block all or none of the System UI notifications, but in Android O, you get separate controls over notifications for screenshots and storage, along with more ambiguous items like "Alerts," "General Messages," and "Miscellaneous."

Pull down the notification panel to reveal the Quick Settings and you'll see even more changes. The triple-function Quick Settings buttons are back—tapping on the icon does one thing, tapping on the text does a second function, and long pressing on the icon does a third thing. Take Wi-Fi, for instance: A tap on the icon turns Wi-Fi on and off, while a long-press opens the full Wi-Fi settings. A tap on the bottom Wi-Fi text will open the Wi-Fi panel. It's complicated and hard to remember. Google started this Quick Settings layout in Lollipop, got rid of it in Marshmallow and Nougat, and now it's back in Android O.

A new Ambient Display design is a big regression over the old design. Ambient Display is a low-power notification mode that kicks in when the screen is "off." When a notification comes in, or when the device is moved or tapped on, the screen will light up briefly with a white-on-black UI and show you your new notifications. The older method was great—it was just a black-and-white version of the notification panel. This new version is a custom design that shows much less information when a notification first comes in and even less on subsequent viewings.

Take Gmail: in the old version, you got the "Gmail" app name, the account, time, contact icon, contact name, and e-mail subject. Now you get the app name, contact name, and that's pretty much it. You get action buttons now ("Archive" and "Reply"), but they are pretty useless when all you can see is the contact name and none of the message text. This display is what you get when a notification first comes in. After that, all you get is the Gmail icon. This is terrible, and it just seems unfinished.

Settings: Lots of improvements, and don’t worry about the unfinished UI































The settings app has been totally reworked. Everything is rearranged and condensed, and the design is... well, it's different. Settings now has a bland, white theme and lots of funky margins. Even the icon is nearly all white, which makes it very hard to see on the white background of the app drawer. I wouldn't put too much stock into the color scheme of the current Settings app, though. Remember, these are the AOSP settings, which almost never ship in production devices. Samsung and other OEMs will of course skin the crap out of the settings, but even Google now ships the "Google Settings" on Pixel devices. The AOSP Setting design looks like a placeholder because it most likely is a placeholder.

The Android O settings have been seriously condensed and now are only about half as long as the Nougat version. Settings have been placed into logical sections like "Network & Internet" for Wi-Fi and cellular options; "Connected Devices" for Bluetooth, NFC, and USB devices; and "Security and Screen Lock" for encryption, fingerprint, and lock screen type.

Google also took the fantastic step of having multiple entry points for a setting in different sections. You no longer have to wonder if the device timeout setting is under "Display" because it's tied to when the display shuts off or "Battery" because it's closely tied to battery usage. You'll now find the option in both spots. For people who would rather browse the settings than use the search option, this is a great change.

I'm also a big fan of the "Apps & Notifications" screen. It pulls in all the various app settings and permissions onto a single screen—notifications, app permissions, default apps, special access, and more. One of the things we complained about with past Android versions was that app settings were all over the place in the settings, and now they're finally in one handy spot.

The permissions for "sideloading" apps—installing an app from outside of the Google Play Store—work differently now. In older version of Android, there was a single, system-wide "Unknown sources" checkbox. In Android O, installing non-Google Play apps works on a per-app basis. The new "Install other apps" screen will show which apps have permission to install apps. There are some really silly entries here—is anyone installing apps from the calculator? Does that need to be on this list with a "no" next to it? I think it would be better to only include apps that can access the outside world.

Another interesting new addition is the "Backup" screen, powered by Google Drive. This is basically a big status dashboard for the "new" backup system introduced in Android 6.0. Right now everything says "waiting to back up," so we'll have to let the phone sit for a few days and see what it does.

You are now asked for your lock screen PIN or password when you enable the Developer Options. Inside, you'll find the big new option is a selectable mode for the Bluetooth, allowing you to pick from the traditional SBC or the new, higher-quality options like Sony's LDAC and Qualcomm's AptX. Anyone have compatible headphones?

Listing image by Google