ANDROID 6.0 MARSHMALLOW

by Unknown Wednesday, December 30, 2015 0 comments Android 6.0 Android Apps Android news MARSHMALLOW

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INTRODUCTION:

Android Marshmallow is a refinement and extension of the core features and functionality of Android Lollipop.In this Android Marshmallow review, I take a look at the major features of Google's latest OS version to let you know where it hits, where it misses, and where it has room to improve.

Android Marshmallow Release Date:

Android Marshmallow was initially announced at Google I/O on May 28, when it was released as the Android M developer preview. Several updates to the preview came out before Marshmallow was officially named on August 17. Google finally unveiled Android 6.0 Marshmallow, alongside the 2015 Nexus devices, on September 29, 2015.

As usual, Google's Nexus family was first to get the goods, and the brand new Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P were the launch devices for Android 6.0. Factory images for most of the existing Nexus range – the Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 9 and Nexus Player – appeared on October 5.

COMPARISON WITH LOLLIPOP :

• Visual Appearance

• Integration of new Google products

• Core features of the system

• Security

• Improvements to usability

Visual Appearance :

Android Marshmallow is visually similar to its predecessor, Lollipop, in many ways. Google’s Material Design language is now more pervasive than ever before and the main areas of the UI –settings, notifications shade and navigation – remain the same. But Marshmallow does have some differences in appearance and new features .

• Lock screen:

1. The Marshmallow lock screen is almost identical to Lollipop's, complete with expandable notifications and app shortcuts. But where Lollipop had shortcuts in the bottom corners that too you to the camera and dialer, Marshmallow replaces the dialer shortcut with one to Google’s voice search. This small update is the first clue as to just how integral voice commands are to Marshmallow.

• Google voice command:

• App drawer:
  

1. The app drawer in Marshmallow went through a couple of changes during the developer preview process and appears in the final version as a vertical scrolling list as opposed to the paginated horizontal list from Lollipop. You can scroll through the list or use a new scrubber bar on the right to jump to a particular letter of the alphabet.
   

• Notifications and Quick Settings

1. The notifications area displays app notifications, which can be expanded or tapped to launch the full app. This area also shows persistent system notifications, such as when a Bluetooth device is connected or other system features are enabled. The 'dismiss all' button now faces the other direction compared to Lollipop, but it does the same thing.

• System UI Tuner
  

1. Once enabled, System UI Tuner will appear in the settings menu at the very bottom. It provides a few simple UI tweaks, including adding a battery percentage indicator to your battery icon, a customizable Quick Settings area, where toggles can be rearranged or removed and new ones added, and a menu for displaying which icons are displayed in your status bar. You’ll never have to suffer a cluttered status bar with NFC, Bluetooth and Alarm icons again.

• Animations and Easter Egg:
  

1. Animations and transitions make up an even larger part of Marshmallow than they did in Lollipop. Transitions between apps, pages and settings are quite often accompanied by animations, as is toggling features on and off within the various settings and menus. It’s relatively minor stuff but it all adds to the polished feeling of Marshmallow.
2. As always, there is a hidden Easter Egg in Marshmallow and it can be seen as a kind of metaphor for Marshmallow as a whole. In Android Lollipop the Easter Egg was a Flappy Bird clone. Just as Marshmallow looks an awful lot like Lollipop on the surface with lots of refinements and improvements underneath, the Flappy Bird Easter Egg returns, but with a bit of a makeover. It’s accessed by repeatedly tapping Android version in the About phone section of the settings.

• Dark theme and rotation support:

1. For unknown reasons, both the system-wide dark theme and support for a rotating home screen were removed from the final version of Marshmallow, despite appearing in versions of the developer preview. We may yet see these make a return in future updates to Marshmallow – they are frequently-requested features, after all – but for now they are not a part of the Android 6.0

Android Marshmallow Google integration:

• Google Now on Tap:

• Google Now on Tap basically shortcuts the need to search for additional contextual information and delivers it at any turn. Long-pressing the home button now activates Google Now on Tap, replacing the old gesture for Google Now from any screen.

• Now on Tap reads the content of any screen on your phone, whether it is in a Google or third-party app, and delivers information that might be relevant to keywords on-screen.

• It’s basically everything we always wanted Google Search to be: instant, useful and effortless. It isn’t perfect, and you’ll still get results you’re not after from time to time, but it’s a really great start.

• Voice API and Assist API:

1. voice search is implemented in google voice api to launch application such as watzup,hike,settings .and also command for call, messages like siri in Iphone .

• Google settings app:

1. Google Settings is implemented seperately for changing voice control settings and google api calling settings.

• Android Pay:

1. Android Pay is simple to set up but it requires an NFC-equipped terminal at
   participating retailers as well as an NFC-equipped smartphone. Samsung Pay has an advantage here because it also works on the existing magnetic strip readers already in stores

Android Marshmallow performance

• Doze

Doze is battery status checking settingsl. Where other devices lose an average of 15-25 percent of battery life overnight, Marshmallow can take that down to 3-5 percent, taking your standby time to nearly two weeks in the process.

• App standby

1. App standby is the app equivalent of Doze, like a stock Android version of Greenify. App standby identifies apps that haven’t been used in a while and puts them into a deep sleep, which is basically the same thing as disabling them in the settings.
2. This means they can’t use system resources, run background processes or sync and access the network, so an instant messenger you rarely use might end up on standby and stop receiving notifications, for example. If you don't want this, Google has created a whitelist, with which you can prevent apps from being put on standby.

• Type-C and reverse charging:

Marshmallow also supports the new standard, USB Type-C. Type-C cables are reversible – so you won’t have to worry about fumbling around with your charging cable in the dark – and they also support faster data transfer and charging speeds

• microSD support – Adaptable Storage Devices

1. Marshmallow also supports the new standard, USB Type-C. Type-C cables are reversible – so you won’t have to worry about fumbling around with your charging cable in the dark – and they also support faster data transfer and charging speeds

2. With the arrival of Marshmallow we're finally looking at full-fledged support for microSD expansion in Android devices. Under Marshmallow, microSD cards can be formatted to a specific device – meaning they will be unusable elsewhere – and treated as another part of internal storage by the Android system.

• Internal storage and file manager

RAM manager is implemented in android 6.0 in settings for checking the ram status.

Android Marshmallow security

• App permissions
  

1. This means you are in control of whether or not an app has access to something as critical as your microphone or camera.
   
2. Some apps might not work properly with certain permissions disabled, but the onus is on the app developers to stabilize their apps without all permissions granted, not on you to accept what you might feel are unnecessary permissions.
   
3. Permissions for a particular app can be viewed within the settings menu (to which permissions an app does or doesn't have) or by permission type (so you can see how many apps have access to your contacts, for example).
   
4. Viewing by permission type is slightly hard to get to, but at least that will stop accidental changes from being made.
   

• Fingerprint API
  

1. Android Marshmallow introduces system-level fingerprint support via the new fingerprint API.
   
2. Both new Nexus devices have a fingerprint scanner. The rollout of Android Pay and other touchless payment systems that rely on fingerprint scanners for authentication can now be handled by Android itself rather than a manufacturer add-on.
   
3. Fortunately, Google has set minimum standards for scanner accuracy in order to pass its device certification.
   

• Automatic app backup
  

1. Historically, Android has offered a pretty weak app backup solution. The Backup and reset section in Lollipop was opt-in, vague and incomplete. Marshmallow can now automatically back up both your apps and data, so any apps restored from a backup will be the same as they were before – you’ll be signed in and right where you left off.
   

• Network security reset
  

1. Network security reset is a nice little feature in the Backup and reset settings which allows you to quickly and easily remove all passwords, settings and connections associated with Bluetooth, cellular data and Wi-Fi. It’s a simple addition that demonstrates how much attention to enhanced security and user-facing controls in Marshmallow.
   

• Monthly security patches
  

1. Following the Stagefright scare, Google and a number of manufacturers pledged to provide monthly security updates to keep on top of any security weaknesses in Android. With this in mind, Marshmallow now displays your device’s Android security patch level section in the About phone section.
   

• Encryption
  

1. Encryption is back in Android Marshmallow with a vengeance
   
2. Marshmallow heralds the dawn of the new age of Android encryption, although only on new devices. New Android devices running Marshmallow are required to use full-disk encryption by default, but devices updated from a previous version of Android do not.
   

• Smart Lock
  

1. Smart Lock has been around since Lollipop, but it bears repeating now that smartwatches are more prevalent.
   
2. Smart Lock on Marshmallow provides options for unlocking your
   
   device or keeping your device unlocked depending on various intuitive scenarios.
   
3. Smart Lock is found in the security settings and requires the use of some form of lock screen security.
   

• Smart Lock for Passwords
  

1. Google’s old Google Settings app is no more, having graduated to its very own section in the Settings menu, where it belongs. This area contains all your Google settings and preferences.
   
2. Everything from Voice, Google Fit, Now and location access is contained here, so it’s worth getting to know this area.
   
3. One new addition is called Smart Lock for Passwords and it is basically a Google password manager
   

Android Marshmallow usability

• Text selection
  

1. Marshmallow introduces an improved text selection setup
   

• Delete screenshots from notifications shade
  

1. In previous versions of Android, when you took a screenshot the only option you had straight from the notifications preview was to share it.
   
2. In Marshmallow, you can now delete it too. This may not seem like a big deal, but if, like me, you take about a hundred screenshots a day, it's hugely convenient because you no longer have to go into your gallery to delete a poorly timed or duplicate screenshot.
   

• App links
  

1. Another long-standing irritation with Android is the way it handles app links.
   
2. Previously, you seemed to have to repeated tell the system to always open certain links with a certain app, only to have to repeat the process again and again.
   
3. This seems to have finally been solved with Marshmallow.
   

• Silent mode/priority notifications
  

1. Silent mode is back in Android Marshmallow, along with a fairly confusing new volume setup.
   
2. When you press the volume button you'll get a single volume slider, which can be expanded to reveal ring volume as well as media volume and alarm volume.
   

• Direct share
  

1. Direct Share is a new feature. It doesn't work everywhere yet, but the idea is that when you hit the share picker, instead of just seeing a list of apps, you'll see some contacts at the top as well.
   
2. Theoretically you can instantly share the content with that person rather than head to an app in which you then need to choose a contact.
   

• Chrome custom tabs
  

1. This is basically a Chrome-based in-app mini-browser that developers can use to display web page content within their app (like an FAQ or Help page), rather than having a user bounce from their app to a web app and possibly not make it back.
   
2. Developers can color and brand the Chrome custom tab to look as much like part of their app as possible.
   
3. The popup browser draws over the top of the original app, and supports basically all the features of the full version of Chrome itself, but with dedicated tweaks specifically for that app that's using it, such as an embedded share button specifically for their app.

Conclusion:

Android Marshmallow isn't so much a revolution as a refinement of Android. The visual makeover of Android Lollipop now has a lot more depth beneath that shiny surface. Marshmallow is primarily about a few things: making Google services even easier to use; delivering better ways to access and manage apps; addressing core system weaknesses like battery life and security; and delivering more customization and user-facing controls to stock Android.