Android Oreo: User perspective’s deep dive
Know how is it faster, efficient & consistent
Billions, that’s the count of devices on which Android Operating System is installed. Hey folks, I am an Android Developer & Enthusiast and 4 years ago, I felt that it is going to have an amazing journey and future.
When Android Lollipop was launched then we, developers, were really excited to welcome Material Design among other things. For users, it is the clean and consistent UI that you feel and experience from Android Lollipop and after. Well, this was a great mark in a long journey. Till now, that is Android Oreo, it got amazing updates and features in it’s arsenal and here are few things in Android Oreo that makes it the almost complete & better package.
1. It is Faster
Most of us have felt the lags in old Android devices. One of few reasons of those lags were the apps running in background without notifying you and taking up the resources like memory and CPU time. So, in case of low memory where the app being currently used would require some, it will fail to respond to user interactions as it won’t have fair amount of resources to process the task on hand, hence the lag.
Android Oreo is quiet transparent.
In Android Oreo, users will be notified if app tries to run some task in background. Also, if a user closes the app then the system finishes any executing background task of the closed app after some time thus making room for other apps in the memory. This means no lags, and a faster experience.
Most tasks will be scheduled
Now consider a situation where a human being tries to hear every thing around her/him and then realizes that it wasn’t meant for her/him. It would take the person’s time and mind resources to process everything, Right?!
Same is with the apps. Earlier apps which would listen to the System events, like a new picture being saved in the device, would wake up & take some memory resources and then soon realize that they still don’t have other satisfying conditions, like internet, to carry their task. Many apps would do the same and together lead to thrashing the memory, making it difficult of app being currently used to run, hence the lag.
In Android Oreo, the apps cannot listen to most of the system events, instead apps have to schedule their tasks with required conditions & events to a system service(which listens for the system events) and the task will be executed only when all the conditions are met. Thus, optimal use of resources and a faster experience.
2. Shareable fonts
Now apps can download the fonts after being installed and 2 or more apps can share the same font resource. This means less size of the app as it doesn’t have to package font files in them.
3. No more mismatched icons
This comes with some creative boundaries for developers & designers. Some launchers provide round icons and some prefer squircle. To provide a more consistent experience with the device launcher, same app can have multiple shaped launcher icons, adapting to the current launcher environment for the app icon shapes.
4. Dozing continues
This was introduced in Android Marshmallow & improved further in Nougat but I will mention it here because this feature along with others makes Android Oreo an efficient system. Dozing is like your device taking power naps when the device is unused. It saves power and helps your battery last longer. During Doze, many less priority tasks are deferred and executed later. Don’t worry, your alarms will ring at time.
5. Faster updates
Starting from Oreo, device manufacturers will be able to roll out new Android releases to their users much faster and all the credit goes to Project Treble.Android Oreo is slowing rolling out to the users and I would say it is totally worth a wait to have this performant dessert in our devices.
