Today, Google released the official version of Android 7.0 Nougat to select Nexus devices. The easiest way to install Android Nougat on your Nexus device is through the Android Beta program, which is exactly what I did for my Nexus 6P. In this video, we’re going to run through all the main features of Android 7.0 Nougat.
First of all, Google has made the OS much more personal with the addition of 72 new emojis. There are now 15,000 different emoji built right into Android which should help you express yourself pretty much any way you want. Some of the new emojis include a facepalm emoji, sick emoji, spoon, bacon, and many, many more. Your keyboard also has better language support. If you speak two languages, you can easily switch back and forth between those languages.
The Quick Settings gives you easy access to Wi-Fi, cellular data, battery life, Bluetooth, flashlight, and many more. You can move them all around as you see fit. And what’s cool is that the first five will always be displayed, even in minimized view as you can see here. No more double sliding down the notification panel. What’s also cool is that you can tap on one quick setting and you can view detail information without opening the settings drawer itself.
Probably the most anticipated new feature is multi-tasking. With Android Nougat, you have several new multi-tasking features. Multi-window allows you to run two apps side by side and the windows are resizeable. You just drag the divider up and down and you can resize your windows just like that. To run two apps at once, you just press the overview button to view your running apps and you drag and drop the app to one side of the screen. But do note that not all apps work flawlessly with multi-tasking as of day one of the release.
Direct Reply allows you to reply directly to notifications without having to open any app and Quick Switch allows you to switch between your two most recently used apps by simply double tapping the overview button and boom, it just works like that. Also worth mentioning, you can silence notifications from an app by long pressing the notification in the notification panel. This is a great feature for those apps that constantly spam you with notifications.
Those are the big, new features. There are some various other design tweaks here and there. There are also some big improvements behind the scenes that can be a bit hard for me to show you on video. They include more battery smarts—the dose battery saving feature first introduced with Android Marshmallow has been further improved with Nougat. Devices running Android 7.0 should last longer than if they were running on older versions of Android. There is also a new data saver mode that provides it better data management for background applications that can be found in the settings.
Android 7.0 also has support for Vulkan, an advanced 3D rendering API and Daydream, Google’s platform for mobile virtual reality. Vulkan will help games run smoothly and will take advantage of next generation graphics. Daydream will allow future Daydream phones, headsets, and controllers to transfer YouTube virtual worlds. It’s a feature that’s coming later this year, which we definitely plan on covering so stay tuned for that.
In addition, the new Android devices coming this fall will have new features like seamless updates, file-based encryption and direct boot. Seamless updates selects new Android devices running Android Nougat to install updates in the background, which means you don’t have to wait while your device installs and updates and optimizes itself for the new software version. You can kiss optimizing apps goodbye. Also, software updates for current Nexus devices install much faster. What’s more is that Android Nougat can better isolate and protect files for individual users on your device via the file pasting encryption feature.
Lastly, direct boot helps your device start faster and apps run securely even before you unlock your device when your device reboots.
So as you can see, there’s a lot to love about the new Android OS. Android 7.0 Nougat is currently available for the Nexus 6, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus 9, Nexus Player and Pixel C.