Android Marshmallow: Top Features unveiled

5 min readMar 30, 2016

The official release of Android 6.0 Marshmallow is now an event of past. However, this very Android version has successfully registered its presence among the already established versions like Honeycomb, Jellybean etc. Talking particularly about Android 6.0 Marshmallow, it comes packed with a bundle of features. The new version overrules Android Lollipop that used to be the Android’s biggest update before Android Marshmallow was made available for users.

Prior we focus on the core features of Android Marshmallow, let’s talk a little about the trends of naming these versions by the Google. The giant search engine i.e. Google has been following a trend of using sugar candies for Androids that include Lollipop (5.0), KitKat (4.4), Jellybean (4.1) and Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0). In the attempt of increasing the series, Marshmallow has been included in the list. Marshmallow brings a series of features to let the Android user experience an advanced feature-packed platform over their smartphones. Let’s explore the most important ones.

Marshmallow brings new features. Take a look

App Permission

The app permission has got great improvements and the giant search engine allows the users to decide which permission they wish to grant or deny, based on when particular functions are used by them. Contrary to the current implementations, that make users agree on all the app permission with the first install and also for the related updates, Android ‘M’ users have the notifications that would ask them for permissions only when particular functions on the apps are used. For the purposes, Google has diagnosed a total 8 parameters that also include contacts, the location, camera and more to help the users give permission for these.

App Linking

Currently, Android supports the app linking system. It is known as intents and help the users choose an option to open any web link by choosing how to handle the link i.e.in browsers or as an app. However, the Android ‘M’ evolution help the developers include the auto-verify feature within the code that would enable the opening of the link within the respective app. The Android ‘M’ operating system verifies the link in the background, after which, the link gets open within the app. Thus, it won’t pop up to ask from the users every time when such a link is opened.

Power Management

The smart power managing feature of the new Android ‘M’ is named Doze. With this robust power managing feature, the background processes are managed optimally. The robust motion detector sensor will automatically shut down some processes that are not in use for long. Even being in the doze stage, high priority notifications and alarms activates the system.

Fingerprint Access

With the quick fingerprint access, users can unlock phones and log in either to the official Google play store as well as to other apps that require log in. The feature demotes the need of entering the password as the fingerprint access is enough to perform the task successfully. Android ‘M’ comes with a standard fingerprint sensor that supports various phones to develop standard API to go with their sensors.

Auto Backup On Google Drive

The robust Marshmallow feature allows the users to backup all the settings and the data uses for the apps in the personal Google drive account. The memory for the storage is up to 25 MB per app. This is really going to help the users store their valuable data without making any of the manual efforts as the process is an automatic one.

Android Play

This feature will help the users make easy payments with the use of NFC or near-field communication as well as host card emulation techniques. With this tap-to-pay service, the users will just need to unlock their phones, bring it near to the NFC terminal and make the payment successfully without logging in to any of the apps. As soon as users enter the card details, a virtual account number will be created to enable the users to make the payments.

USB Type

Android ‘M’ is designed to support a new kind of USB connector called USB- C. The connector has bi-directional port that provides an option to the users to either charge the phone or use the medium to charge other Android devices.

How Android ‘M’ is better than the previous Lollipop 5 version!

For a number of users, the previous Lollipop 5.0 version is not as powerful as it should be. There remains serious issues with the battery life for a lot of devices in a combination with frequent device crashes and some major bug issues. Bugs galore has already assured the new Android ‘M’ version is going to be more prominent than the Lollipop 5.0 version.

Google’s figures suggest that the adoption of 5.0 version is at 15.5 % wherein 5.1 version accounts for another 2.6%. The giant search engine has tried to wipe out all the major complications with the previous Android version and thus, probably has taken such a major jump to Android Marshmallow 6.0. The much improved features with Marshmallow that include revamped payment system in play store, support for fingerprint sensor, a boost for battery and uniquely designed power management mode are doing their best to bring success to the Google’s effort with its new Android version.

The new and improved features with the Android ‘M’ sound a lot for users. Worth to mention that Android follows the trend of getting better with each version and the new Android ‘M’ has already proved it. The new addition in the series is actually an advancement that has a nice mixture of new features and brilliant refinements.