Android Pie is the official title of Google’s Android P working system, and the ultimate software program is now obtainable on Pixel telephones and the Important Telephone at present and coming to extra gadgets all through this yr and subsequent yr.

It is a feature-filled Android 9 Pie replace, with design modifications, useful shortcuts, and a giant give attention to AI by way of adaptive settings. Google is making an attempt to make your telephone extra private, extra environment friendly, and simpler to make use of.

We’ve got a full Android Pie options listing beneath, together with a telephones listing, detailing which gadgets are appropriate. The Android Pie launch date can be staggered for many individuals, with producers like Samsung, LG and others (and within the US, the carriers) required to tweak the software program. Android Pie could launch in 2018 for some, however in lots of circumstances you will have to attend till 2019.

Now that the Android P beta is over, let’s transfer onto what you will see with Android Pie beginning at present – for those who’re holding a Pixel telephone.

Reduce to the chase

• What’s Android Pie? It is Android 9, the latest model of Android
• When can get you Android Pie? At this time on Pixel telephones, 2018-2019 for others
• How a lot will Android Pie value? It will likely be a free replace

Android Pie launch date

This… is sophisticated. 

Android Pie launch date: Now (at present)
You’ll be able to download the Android Pie at present on Pixel telephones by way of a free over-the-air replace. It is ‘rolling out’, in keeping with Google, so that you won’t see it immediately as others hammer the Android 9 server.

The Important Telephone can be getting Android 9 Pie beginning at present, Important announced, ‘We’re proud to carry Android 9 Pie to Important Telephone the identical day it’s launched! Test your telephone now for the replace. 🥧’

Android Pie launch date: Quickly (by December 21)
Excellent news for Sony, Xiaomi, HMD International, Oppo, Vivo, and OnePlus customers in addition to qualifying Android One gadgets. Google says that these corporations, which all participated within the Android Pie beta together with Important, will difficulty the replace by the top of autumn (so earlier than Friday, December 21).

• Sony
• Xiaomi
• HMD International
• Oppo
• Vivo
• OnePlus
• Choose Android One telephones

Android Pie launch date: Later (2018-2019)
What about an Android Pie launch date for Samsung, LG, Motorola and different telephones? We count on many different producers to announce launch dates over the course of the subsequent a number of months and into subsequent yr, as per regular. That is typical of Android updates, particularly within the US the place service approval is required.

There’s another set of gadgets that might get Android Pie early: the rumored Google Pixel 3 telephones, which we suspect will launch in October (October four to be particular). The entire Pixel three telephones are nonetheless unannounced.

Onto the most important Android Pie options.

Adaptive battery life

Android Pie has been designed to present you a extra constant battery through the use of on-device machine studying to determine which apps you will use within the subsequent few hours and which you will not use till later, if in any respect at present.

With 30% reeducation in CPU app wake-ups for apps, adaptive battery helped us eke out just a few extra hours of machine use once we examined it. And now the software program is last, so it ought to be even higher. 

Google partnered with Deep Thoughts to refine its deep studying algorithms and it is having a giant impact on Android battery life, in keeping with Dave Burke, Google’s VP of Engineering for Android. Adaptive brightness is essentially the most significant new Android Pe function in our personal deep minds.

Adaptive brightness

Present auto-brightness settings aren’t ok, in keeping with Google, and that is why it is giving telephone makers a extra energy environment friendly approach to calibrate telephone display screen brightness based mostly on each the atmosphere and realized habits.

Google calls this adaptive brightness and claims that 50% of customers who examined this Android Pie function have stopped manually adjusting the brightness due to it. Even for those who nonetheless attain to manually modify the brightness, general, try to be doing it much less. That is what we experiencing when working Android Pie on a Pixel 2.

App actions

Google is inserting extra prediction instruments into its app drawer. Beforehand, you’d see a high row of predicted apps, usually based mostly in your utilization historical past. That was useful.

Android Pie goes a step additional with app actions that predict what you will do subsequent, and these shortcuts sit in a row proper beneath the anticipated app icons. This boils right down to shortcuts for calls, or a run routine based mostly on the truth that you simply plugged in headphones and run day by day presently with an app like Strava. It is like Android Pie is studying your thoughts.

App slices

You will not see app slices till later this yr, however Google has issued an API to builders to create extra shortcuts round its working system interface. That is beginning in search, after all (in any case, that is Google, we’re speaking about).

The perfect instance at Google IO was with the ride-hailing app, Lyft. Looking for ‘Lyft’ will present the app as a solution, but additionally shortcuts to your high locations, like work and residential, every with a value already listed. It is saving you from having to enter the app menus so as to choose these choices.

App slices by way of the search bar can prolong to Google Photographs, too. In case you lookup Hawaii, you will see images from a trip, for instance, and checking right into a lodge could quickly be simpler whenever you lookup your lodge title. As an alternative of getting to wade by way of the clunky third-party app, you might be able to simply choose ‘verify in’.

Android Pie navigation modifications

Android Pie has a brand new system navigation interface so as to make multi-tasking simpler to know, with a single clear house button. It’s totally a lot an iPhone X horizontal bar to exchange the everyday house and up to date buttons.

That is a part of Google’s plan to make the UI easier and adapt to the all-screen telephone designs on the market. It is extra approachable to new customers, in accordance Google.

You’ll be able to swipe up from the underside wherever within the working system to see latest open apps in addition to 5 predicted app on the backside of the display screen to avoid wasting you time. Swiping up a second time and you may see your app drawer. With this one-two swipe gesture, Google has basically mixed the all-apps and overview areas gesture into one.

You are able to do one higher than Apple’s iPhone interface. Android Pie will allow you to scroll by way of your whole apps in a short time by sliding proper and left with the horizontal bar on the backside. It is like a video you are scrubbing by way of, however for app choice.

Kind our expertise, it takes time to get used to the navigation modifications (as do nearly all software program modifications), however retraining your mind for Android Pie is price it ultimately. Every little thing feels intuitive. 

Quantity slider and display screen rotation mounted

The quantity slider has moved once more, and this time it is off to the suitable facet close to the amount rocker. That is sensible, however it does extra than simply get a brand new house.

Urgent the amount keys will now modify the media quantity as an alternative of generally (however you are not fairly positive when) controlling the ringer quantity. The ringer might be turned on and off by way of a software program toggle button whenever you modify the amount. Your response could also be like ours: “Why wasn’t it at all times this fashion?!”

You may as well now manually management display screen orientation. That is completed by way of a pop-up icon that seems whenever you rotate the display screen. You will not need to depend on the telephone to (typically mistakenly) rotate the display screen for you.

Android Pie ‘Digital Wellbeing’

It is no secret that we use our smartphones an excessive amount of, and also you in all probability do, too (you are on a expertise web site, in any case). However how a lot time?

Like a Fitbit tracker gauges for exercise and informs to inspire you, Google’s Android Pie replace features a ‘Digital Wellbeing’ dashboard to watch how lengthy you’ve got been utilizing your telephone and particular apps. 

Digital Wellbeing is meant to assist you in understanding what you are spending an excessive amount of time on as a way to modify your habits. 

It even comes with an app timer and to ship you notifications whenever you cross a self-imposed threshold, and a brand new Shush function is launching as a Do Not Disturb shortcut whenever you flip your telephone over on its entrance face. Along with silencing alarms, it will not even show visible notifications. Consider Google as eliminating each audible and visible noise out of your life when these modes are enabled.

Making room for extra Android notch shows

Android Pie makes room for notched shows, and we have seen numerous them on new Android telephones in the previous couple of months – just about everybody however Samsung.

The usage of a notch cutout implies that a few of Android’s commonplace interface staples have shifted.

Searching for the time? It is now on the highest left nook of the display screen. App notification icons pile subsequent to it, which might get dicey if A.) you utilize numerous apps, or B.) your subsequent Android telephone has a notch (Google has deliberate forward for this, fortunately.) 

Another design modifications we observed: Textual content is extra sharp, there’s usually extra coloration within the menus, transition animations have been touched up, and a few stuff has been moved round. It seems to be and feels recent, even on this very early software program construct.

The Pixel Launcher now has a rounded-off edge, matching the look of notification home windows that you just see whenever you get up your telephone. That is clearly a minor contact, however it performs into the general look that Google goes for with Android Pie. 

Ambient Show has been overhauled, a minimum of in comparison with what got here earlier than it on Pixel XL and what at present exists on the most recent Pixel 2 XL Oreo software program. The date and day of week now not show beneath the time, however it nonetheless shows app notification icons.

The largest change right here is that down on the display screen’s backside, it shows the battery proportion, in order that you do not have to wake it to know whether or not you want to plug in or not. We look ahead to Google making extra updates to Ambient Show because the dev preview continues.

• We even have a want listing for Wear OS