Remember the HP Touchpad ? HP’s glorious tablet failure that made more sense to buy after the company liquidated the stock. The HP Touchpad was rooted to run Android and made its way up from Jelly bean all the way up to Marshmallow early last year.
One of the ROM makers for the Touchpad has managed to port Android N over to the long lost tablet, the active community is pretty large and owners have never been happier with the Tablet.
The port is still in early beta and according to the Dev a few things still don’t work
WIFI MODEL
Camera
Alot of features are not installed. EVToolbox is launched from the launcher for now
4g MODEL
Camera
Alot of features are not installed. EVUpdater is broken ATM
For those who are willing to give it a try, know that the process is quite long and detailed, and somewhat frustrating. But the end result means, that your 4 year+ old Tablet runs Android N before many of the so called Expensive flagships of 2016. That’s one middle finger to the Man !
Android N is the next big update to Android, and while Google already showed off Android N earlier this year. The official announcement focuses on important Security issues and productivity while ensuring better performance.
With the new Vulcan framework, Google will give developers direct access to the GPU and reduce CPU overload.
We have already seen the preview of Android N, and a lot of the features, including multi-window. And new notification customizations.
Those with eligible devices can enroll for the beta updates. Also, if you haven’t already you can submit your name options for the next version of Android.
Google has put off implementing an Android variant of Apple’s 3D touch at the launch of their next big OS, Android N. A lot of people were excited about this feature, said to be implemented in Android N, providing support to hardware manufacturers to use 3d touch type functionality throughout Android OS.
Google’s next Nexus phones which are supposedly being manufactured by HTC will come with the hardware capabilities of 3D Touch, however, may not use this feature from the get-go.
According to a report in Recode, insiders in Google said
the feature will not be part of the initial Android N release and will have to wait for a later release of the operating system, most likely as part of a maintenance update to the software.
While this may be a let down to excited patrons, this also confirms that Google is indeed working on a 3D touch Android variant which has been loved by iPhone 6s and 6s Plus users alike.
There are already a few manufacturers that have used pressure-sensitive screens and have a more nimble version of 3D touch support on their phones. Googe has already seeded a pre-release dev beta version of Android N and is currently holding a poll to decide the name of this variant of Android.
With the launch of the next big Android revision just around the corner, it is disheartening to see that the upgrade cycle of Android is lower than ever. According to Google, Android 6.0 updates have only reached 7.5% devices running the Android OS, and this includes non-Nexus handsets.
In comparison, Android Kitkat and Lolipop have been the most successful for the company with a reach of 32.5% and 35.6% respectively. However, penetration has hugely improved from the 1.2% penetration that Marshmallow had back in February. The large boost is assumed to be from upgrade cycles of companies like Samsung and HTC who recently started to push Android Marshmallow updates.
In comparison 84% iOS devices including iPhones, iPads and iPods are running iOS 9 which almost immediately crossed the 50% penetration.
Android has a far larger fragmentation and the update cycle is controlled by several different manufacturers for their respective cycles. Google is attempting to simplify the upgrades and push for a cleaner and more efficient upgrade capability with Android N which is expected to be released at Google IO.
Google has taken the lid off the latest bombshell to hit Android smartphones, the all new Android N. Though it’s still just at developers preview stage, and is understandably bug ridden, but that does not mean we should not be excited.
Android N comes with a host of cool features which promise to get you addicted to this sweet OS. Today we bring to you the best features that Android N comes with.
Multi-window support that allows for multiple apps to run simultaneously
This is one feature that is sure to grab headlines in the coming days. This poster boy of features will surely make a lot of happy Android fans as it adds the functionality of running multiple apps side by side in the same view. With the all new Android N installed, users will be able to launch and use multiple apps right next to each other.
The Android N team hasn’t yet explained how this will particular feature will be executed, but early impressions suggest the interface looks much like Microsoft’s split-screen function. The guys at Android have also revealed that this feature, for now, will only work when developers enable the feature for their apps.
More Power to the Overview Button
This might not look like something huge as most custom ROMs for some time now have had this feature in some or the other form, but now Google is doing its bit in bringing to the overview button the power it deserves.
With the Android N, users can now switch between your current and previous apps simply by double-tapping the overview button.If you keep tapping the overview button you’ll cycle through all the open apps. Long-pressing the overview button opens the current app in split-screen. You can use the same double-tap and continuous taps to switch between apps in split-screen mode too.
Reworked Notifications Center
The latest version of Android brings with it a reworked notifications center that will see Android tweak the notification area again, but this time, adding features which will add amazing functionality. In what will be welcome news for Android users across the globe, this new functionality will give users the power to reply to notifications from within any window without having to close the app first, or open an app to view them.
Android N will also bring a new option for clubbing multiple notifications from a single app. Android N will intelligently handle your notifications and upon receiving multiple alerts from the same app, they will be grouped together into an expandable “bundle.”
Picture-in-Picture
This one feature is one that users had been asking for some time now. Picture-in-Picture support will now mean users will be able to minimise a running video with sending the application to the background and carry on doing other tasks such as searching for rating on IMDB or browse something on the internet while the video still keeps playing in the background.
Talking about this feature, Google explained to devs, “Your app can provide a way for users to queue up additional content while they watch a video. The video continues playing in PIP mode while the main screen displays a content selection activity.”
Enhancements to Improve Battery Life
Marshmallow brought with it a very cool Doze feature that was built to conserve power and battery life on your Android powered smartphone. With Android N, Google devs have taken this a step further as Google has added functionality to Doze to make optimisations whenever the screen is turned off.
Google also plans on adding improvements to how apps operate in the background, which has long been a big drain on users’ battery life.
New Data Saving Options
With Android N, Google has turned its focus towards increasing efficiency of data usage on its Android platform. Apps will gain the functionality to monitor Data Saver changes enabling them to intelligently make changes to how certain apps consume data in the foreground and the background.
Google explains: “In the N Developer Preview, users can enable Data Saver on a device-wide basis to use less data, whether roaming, near the end of the billing cycle, or on a small prepaid data pack.”
Google in an unnatural move has made the next upgrade of Android , aka Android N beta for developers. Google writes that the team decided it wanted to release the preview earlier in order to get more feedback from developers earlier in the process and get the final N release into the hands of device manufacturers this summer.
As we look to the next release of Android, N, you’ll notice a few big changes aimed at you as developers: it’s earlier than ever, it’s easier to try and we’re expanding the ways for you to give us feedback. We hope these changes will ensure that you are heard and reflected — that’s what makes Android stronger
Like all beta releases Google claims that this beta edition is a work in progress and you should expect a lot of bugs.
Many new changes are talked about but namely the ability to directly reply to notifications and split screen view for both tablets and phones seems to be the major highlight of this update. You will also get PIP (picture in picture ) for video play like you have seen on Samsung Galaxy devices for a while.
Google will also put major focus on improving performance and battery life by improving features like Doze. Google also claims its aim is to help apps become less memory and resource hungry.
The update can be had today if you are running any of the following devices: Google’s Nexus 6, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus Player, Nexus 9 and Pixel C devices. Once you’ve updated your device, Google will also continue to push new updates OTA to it as they are released.
While the percentage of people on Marshmallow is still low, Google has already moved forward with Android N, what the final name will be, is still unknown. (leave your possible ideas below)
Hit the source link in case you want to try out the new Beta, however if it is your main device, we strongly suggest against it.
