You asked, we delivered. Over on our Instagram page, we posted a picture of us installing Android 7.0 Nougat on the Nexus 9. So ladies and gentlemen, this is the Nexus 9 running stock Android Nougat.
By large, the biggest new feature found on Android 7.0 is multitasking and it's definitely the feature that works best on Nexus 9. One press on the overview button will bring up the running applications. From here, you can drag and open an app to the top of the screen and then select an app to run below it. And as you can see here, the Nexus 9 runs these two applications very well. There's very little lags, stuttering, or any performance hiccups. You can resize each application and navigate both without any noticeable lag or stuttering. Once again, it runs pretty darn well though it will depend on the open apps. Some apps will run better than others. But just the ability to run two applications at once is a feature that completely changes one's productivity when using an Android tablet like the Nexus 9. It's a feature i wish was available on day one of its release.
In addition to multitasking, you can quickly jump back and forth between the last two open applications by quickly double tapping the overview button. It's like cutting through butter-- that's basically how smooth it is. Also appreciated is the ability to expand notifications panel, that's something that works best on a big display. From here, you'll find one of the five quick settings icons will always be shown whenever the notification panel is pulled down. You no longer need to perform a double swipe to access the quick settings. But if you do, however, have to expand the view, you can tap on a quick setting and find detailed information without actually opening up the settings drawer. You're also able to reply to a message or tweet straight from the notification panel itself. There's a neat little animation and everything, no ugly pop-ups. It's beautiful. And if an app is bugging you with notifications all the time, you can long press it and show notifications silently, block all notifications from the app in question or not silence or block the app. There is a new data saver mode in the settings so if you're worried about going over your data limit, you can enable this feature to limit some apps from sending or receiving data in the background.
There's a lot of behind the scenes changes in Android Nougat. The Doze battery saving feature has been further improved, the Vulkan API is now available to improve gaming performance, seamless updates can remove that annoying updating apps screen and install updates in the background. There's file-based encryption and direct boot; a lot of new additions cannot be easily shown on video. We did however go over each feature in more detail in our Nexus 6P videos.
With that said, what are your thoughts on Android Nougat running on Nexus 9. Do you like what you see? Is it enough to make you go pick up a stock Android tablet? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.