Google releases Android Pie; Pixel phones get update

The eagerly awaited Android P or Android Pie or Android 9 is out. Google released the next version of Android today and the update is already rolling out to select devices including the Google Pixel series.

With the release, the suspense over the name has also ended. It is officially Android Pie. Android P focusses more on Artificial Intelligence, Google said in a blog post. “We’ve built Android 9 to learn from you — and work better for you — the more you use it. From predicting your next task so you can jump right into the action you want to take, to prioritizing battery power for the apps you use most, to helping you disconnect from your phone at the end of the day, Android 9 adapts to your life and the ways you like to use your phone.”

Android is looking to make the phone even smarter by learning from the users and adapting to their usage patterns. Android Pie comes with Adaptive Battery feature, which learns the apps used by users most and prioritises battery usage for those apps. Adaptive Brightness learns how users like to set the brightness in different settings, and does it for them without their intervention.

Android Pie helps users get things done faster with App Actions that predict what users would want to do next based on their context and displays that action right on the phone. For example, if the user is preparing for the commute the suggested actions would be navigating to work on Google Maps or resuming an audiobook with Google Play Books. When he puts in headphones after work, he may get options to call his mom or start his favorite Spotify playlist.

The Android P has a new system navigation featuring a single home button. “This is especially helpful as phones grow taller and it’s more difficult to get things done on your phone with one hand. With a single, clean home button, you can swipe up to see a newly designed Overview, the spot where at a glance you have full-screen previews of your recently used apps,” says the blog post.

“Swipe up from anywhere to see full-screen previews of recently used apps and simply tap to jump back into one of them. If you find yourself constantly switching between apps on your Pixel, we’ve got good news for you: Smart Text Selection (which recognizes the meaning of the text you’re selecting and suggests relevant actions) now works on the Overview of your recent apps, making it easier to perform the action you want. You can enable this new system navigation in Settings,” according to the blog.

Android P has a redesigned Quick Settings, a better way to take and edit screenshots, simplified volume controls and an easier way to manage notifications.