By Google surprised everyone by releasing the first preview for Android N today. It’s available to manually install on many Nexus devices, but Google also has a much easier OTA solution. We took the hard way and installed Android N on our Nexus 5X. There’s a surprising amount of new features to explore.
The two biggest areas of change can be found in the notification shade and a new multi-window mode. The notifications have a new “full screen” look, and they allow you to do even more directly from the shade. Android finally has a legitimate way to use two apps at once. The Recents menu can be used to put apps into a split-screen side-by-side view. This feature works surprisingly well already.
Settings has been revamped, as it was leaked a few weeks ago. There is much more information at a glance, and the slide-out menu makes it easy to jump to the settings you need. Under the hood there are some improvements with Doze Mode. It should now work even when your phone is in your pocket, not just when it’s completely stationary.
This is just our first look at Android N. We’ll have much more in-depth coverage in the coming days. Did you manually install Android N on your Nexus? Did you sign up for the Android Beta program? What are your thoughts on this new release?
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