Google announced on Snapchat today that Android N, the latest version of Android, will now go by Android Nougat. The announcement comes after the company said at I/O last month that users could submit suggestions for the name online.
We already know that the Xiaomi Mi Max - which is said to sport a mammoth 6.4-inch FullHD display - will be unveiled on May 10. However, turns out that Xiaomi will make a couple of more announcements that day - the company has confirmed that the next major iteration of its MIUI ROM as well as the Mi Band 2 will also be unveiled on May 10.
Windows 10 is the Goldilocks version of Microsoft's venerable PC operating system -- a "just right" compromise between the familiar dependability of Windows 7, and the forward-looking touchscreen vision of Windows 8.This new Windows, available as a free upgrade for existing Windows 7 and Windows 8 non-corporate users, is built from the ground up to pursue Microsoft's vision of a unified OS that spans all devices without alienating any one platform. It's an attempt to safeguard Microsoft's crumbling software hegemony, assailed on all sides by Google and Apple. And it's a vision of the future as Microsoft sees it, where a single user experience spans every piece of technology we touch. Welcome to Windows as a service. Yes, this new OS is chock-full of fresh features. To name just a few: a lean, fast Internet Explorer replacement called Edge; Microsoft's Siri-like voice-controlled virtual assistant, Cortana; and the ability to stream real-time games to your desktop from an Xbox One in another room. (And in case you're wondering: there is no "Windows 9" -- Microsoft skipped it, going straight from 8 to 10.) But Windows 10 is also the end of a long, awkward road that began with the release of Windows 8 in 2012, when Microsoft tried to convince a world of keyboard and mouse wielders that touchscreens were the way to go -- or else. Ironically, in 2015, the PC hardware for that touchscreen future is now here -- everything from 2-in-1s such as the Lenovo Yoga line to convertible tablets with detachable keyboards, like Microsoft's own Surface. And Windows 10 smoothly lets users transition from "tablet" to "PC" mode on such devices like never before. For the rest of the PC universe -- including those who still prefer good old-fashioned keyboard and mouse navigation -- Windows 10 is a welcome return to form. The Start menu, inexplicably yanked from 8, is back and working the way you expect it to. Those live tiles from the Windows 8 home screen still exist, but they've been attached to the Start menu, where they make a lot more sense. And the fiendishly hidden Charms bar has been morphed into the more straightforward (and easier to find) Action Center. As always, there are some quibbles and gripes with the end product, but all-in-all -- after living with Windows 10 for months -- I can say it's a winner. It's flexible, adaptable and customizable. And it's been battle-tested by an army of beta testers for the better part of a year, making it one of the most robust operating system rollouts in recent memory. Start Menu As expected, the Start menu is the default if you use Windows 10 with a keyboard and mouse, though you can keep the full-screen Start screen if you prefer it. Even on the Start menu, you can pin Live Tiles in multiple sizes on the right, but on the left you also get the familiar list of pinned and recent applications, complete with jump lists for files, the search box that you can also use to run commands and a power button for shutting down or restarting your PC. The search box has all the Windows 8 features, including results from Bing and the Windows store, and a separate Search menu next to the Start button gives you trending topics directly from Bing, too. You can resize the Start menu, although oddly you can only drag to change the height; changing the width means picking a setting rather than just dragging with the mouse. This is certainly more familiar for mouse and keyboard users, but it remains to be seen whether the Windows 8 users who actually like touch will find it a step backwards. Learning new tricksMicrosoft hasn't stopped at making touch make sense on a Windows PC. With Windows 10, just about every facet of the OS has been tweaked and updated, and a few new features have been rolled in. In typical Microsoft fashion, there's a dizzying array of keyboard shortcuts and touch gestures for each of these features, giving you no fewer than three ways to access the things you're trying to get to. No need to memorize them all -- just use whatever suits you (or your device) best. Virtual desktops If I had to pick my favorite new feature, I'd go with virtual desktops. Click the new Task View button on the taskbar and you'll get a bird's-eye view of all of the apps you've got open. Drag one of those apps onto the "new desktop" button, and it'll be moved to its own independent workspace. I can keep one workspace focused on work, a separate desktop for gaming forums, yet another workspace for the new camera lenses I'm checking out; there's no limit to the amount of virtual desktops you can create, and each one is treated as its own little private island. Virtual desktops are far from a new development, and they've been available in past versions of Windows thanks to third-party apps. But it's nice to see Microsoft catching up here. The feature could still use some work: desktops are numbered, but if you create a lot of them it can be hard to keep track of where everything is. The "traditional" Win32 apps you might download and install from a website are happy to open a new instance on any desktop, while clicking the shortcut on an app from the Windows store will yank you back to whatever desktop you used it on last. You can move apps across virtual desktops -- just drag them, or right-click to shunt them over -- but there's no way to reorder the virtual desktops themselves, which would be really useful for staying organized. I'd also like to be able to set a different wallpaper for every virtual desktop -- I can do both of those things in Apple's OSX operating system, and have always found it really handy. Windows Snap The Snap feature introduced in Windows 7 has gotten a bit of an upgrade, too. Drag an app to the left or right side of the screen, and it'll "snap" to fill that space. The new Snap Assist feature will then chime in, showing you little thumbnails of any other apps that are currently open -- click a thumbnail, and it'll fill up the remaining space. You can also snap an app into a corner of your display and fill your screen with up to four apps, divided equally across the screen -- this could prove useful for folks with massive monitors. Windows 10 will keep evolving. Note that this review is not, and will never be, the review of the final version of Windows 10. Microsoft may have frozen its core operating system in advance of the July 29 launch, but the OS and its apps will be updated continually over their lifespan—which, in the case of Windows 10 itself, will be 10 years. We received multiple assurances, however, that what we reviewed was what existing Windows users received starting July 29 (remember, the rollout will be in phases), and what will be installed on new PCs from a vendor like Lenovo or Dell. And this review also reflects updates that we made after testing against the July 29 "release" code. Let’s emphasize this—there is an incredible amount of activity going on right now. Microsoft is busy fixing bugs, hour by hour. Several issues which we noticed in a draft of this review were resolved by the time the final draft was edited. We expect this will continue. Windows 10 is designed to welcome most Windows users. It will be a free upgrade for users of both Windows 7 and Windows 8/8.1, assuming they switch within a year’s time. Don’t dilly-dally; it’s worth it. Several innovations sell Windows 10 by themselves. The new Start menu blends Windows 7 and Windows 8 for maximum comfort. Cortana, Microsoft’s digital assistant, serves up relevant information. A new set of reminders and updates slide in from the side, then vanish. A few quietly powerful apps, like Photos, show you the potential of Microsoft’s new “Universal” mission. Task View, a somewhat obscure feature that creates virtual desktops, could become a sleeper hit beyond the power users for whom it’s intended. In an ideal world, Windows 10 could have baked a little longer. Quite a bit of the operating system ably demonstrates the care Microsoft took to listen to users and make substantive improvements. The UI designers also seem to have gone out of their way to make Windows 10 less in-your-face than Windows 8 was, though arguably it’s swung a bit too far in the direction of blah. But then there’s the ragged Edge browser. It could use a livelier palette, but its real flaws are functional. Microsoft promised Edge would be our browser for the modern web, and it’s not—at least, not yet. Which Windows 10? Home vs. ProfessionalThe first two questions you should ask yourself are this: Which version of Windows 10 is available for my computer? And which do I need? The first question is relatively easy to answer: if you’re upgrading from Windows 7 Home or the basic version of Windows 8, you’ll receive a free upgrade to Windows 10 Home (officially priced at $119). If you own a Surface Pro or a business PC, chances are you’ll upgrade to Windows 10 Professional ($199). I tested both flavors of Windows 10, using a Microsoft Surface Pro 2 with a version of Windows 10 Professional installed on it, as well as an HP Spectre x360 with the consumer version of Windows 10. WINDOWS 10 REVIEW: SEARCH AND CORTANA Instead of placing a search box in the Start menu, or hiding it completely as is the case in Windows 8, Windows 10 sticks it front and centre on the Taskbar. This is a smart move, as it’s always there ready to serve up whatever you need to find or what to know. The first time you click on the box, you’ll see a prompt to enable Cortana. That’s because Cortana and search are pretty much one and the same in Windows 10. In fact, search is just part of the virtual assistant’s remit. If you’ve ever used a phone running Windows Phone 8, you’ll probably know Cortana already. The beauty is that you can type or talk to her and it’s the same in Windows 10. It’s much faster to tap the microphone button (or even say, “Hey Cortana”) and reel off your request than to type it. With IOS 9 and Windows 10 coming Android 6.0 Marshmallow has also been released by Google. I know that not everyone even has Android Lollipop yet, so I won't just concentrate on the differences between the two most recent versions of Android. Instead I'll look at the major areas of the new OS, whether they are new, improved or missing in action. I'll break the review down into: the visual appearance of Android Marshmallow; integration of new Google products; core features of the system; security; and improvements to usability. Take a look around. Do it quickly enough and you might not notice anything different from the big Android update we got last year. Material Design was a huge, highly valuable step forward for Android; this year's update polishes down some of the look's rougher edges and makes a few things more prominent. Consider the lock screen's font, for one -- the time is a bit bolder than it was before, better for those discreet time checks. Then there's the launcher, which some people have been getting a taste of without even updating to Marshmallow. The white background will seem awfully familiar, but that's it as far as similarities go. Remember the multiple pages of apps you had to swipe left and right through in Lollipop? They're all gone, replaced by a single, vertically scrolling tray of icons capped off with four of your most used programs sitting atop the tray. Above that sits a handy search bar, which also (thankfully, finally) lives in the Settings menu so you don't have to poke around aimlessly looking for an arcane option to change. I sort of preferred the paginated app view from days past, but the addition of a search feature is insanely helpful -- where was this before? Marshmallow's actually slightly more customizable than previous versions if you know where to look. The System UI tuner we first spotted in the Android M preview is hidden by default; to access, you have to swipe down into your Quick Settings panel and press on the gear icon until it starts spinning. The same can't be said about my favorite of Marshmallow's minor UI enhancements: the much-improved copy-and-paste commands. It used to be that pressing and selecting text to share required you to decipher some arcane symbols at the top of the screen, but that's been replaced by a simple pop-up menu with -- wait for it -- the words select all, copy, paste and web search. That latter option is on a separate "page" from the others; while that's mildly annoying, it's still worth actually having command buttons that make sense at a glance. Once the sharing mood sets in, you might also notice what Google calls Direct Share. When you try to share content from certain apps, you'll get the option to send it directly to contacts instead of just opening that stuff in another app. Incredibly handy? You bet, but sadly, very few apps support it right now. Now on Tap Now on Tap, on the other hand, is Google at its most Google-y. Long-pressing the home button causes a white line to trace its way around the screen -- once that's done, Google tries to figure out what you're looking at and gives you related information about it. After using it for a while, Now on Tap feels like one of those little touches that should've always been there. Let's say you're listening to something in Spotify, since Now on Tap plays nice with apps beyond ones Google has crafted. I've used the Hamilton example before, but let's dive back into it. Listening to the track "My Shot" (which you should definitely do) and invoking Now on Tap brings up four results cards: three for the principal singers in the song, plus one for the title of the song itself. It's also, sadly, far from perfect. Spotify songs are easy to figure out -- all that's on-screen to interpret is the name of the song, the artist and the album title. Launching Now on Tap on a web page, for instance, can be far less rewarding as Google doesn't always provide a results card for the things you want to see. Now in fairness, it's early days for this feature and it's pretty great in its current shape. Still, given how much of my own information I've willingly offered to Google -- all my emails, all the birthdays and meetings in my calendars, the entirety of my search history -- you'd think it would be able to get a better sense of what it is I'm actually trying to learn more about. Then again, that logic cuts both ways. For all that Google knows about us, it's (thankfully) not a mind reader and can't anticipate my desires on the fly. That Now on Tap will get better is a given; the question you'll have to consider is whether you want to give even more insight into what you do on the web. A better approach to permissions As damned helpful as Now on Tap can be, chances are you're going to experience Marshmallow's revamped approach to app permissions far more frequently. Let's flashback to last year: Before even downloading an app, users had to agree to a load of potential actions that software could perform at some point. With Marshmallow, Google very smartly decided not to front-load all that information and instead alerts you whenever an app you've installed tries to do something new for the first time, like when Twitter wants to figure out where you are or when Chrome wants access to your media. If an app mentions wanting to do something that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, feel free to deny it the access it wants -- in most cases, the rest of the program should still work. Oh, and if you're the kind of person who just taps "Accept" all the time anyway? Popping into the Settings reveals which apps have access to which parts of your device, from the camera to contacts to location, storage and even body sensors. Revoking access is just a tap away, so don't be afraid to make some executive decisions. Yes, you'll be dealing with these notifications pretty frequently, and yes, the whole thing feels a little more intrusive than before. Still, it forces users to understand what their apps are doing and when -- making everyone more security-conscious is worth some tiny inconveniences. Fingerprints for all Speaking of security, Marshmallow is very much into the idea of using your fingerprints as authentication. Need proof? Just look at the two new Nexus handsets. Setup is dead-simple and familiar -- you'll be lifting and pressing down onto the sensor multiple times until you're given the OK. Interestingly, Google doesn't assume that you want to use your fingerprints for everything once you've got at least one on file. Buying apps from the Play Store defaults to using your password for authentication, for instance -- you have to tick a box before you can sign off on purchases with a finger. Once that's done, though, you're all good, and thankfully both of the devices I've been testing Marshmallow with (the Nexus 6P and the HTC One A9) have excellent sensors that quickly and accurately pick up finger touches. That's really no surprise, though: Google's very picky about how good these sensors should be. Now we just need more developers to get on the fingerprint bandwagon. Under the hood Beyond some of those marquee features, Marshmallow also packs a few tricks to keep your device running for as long as possible. Doze is the more technically impressive of the batch since it determines when your device is just sitting around and shuts down nearly all background services and disables your network connection. If a priority message rolls in via Google Cloud Messaging, Marshmallow dutifully surfaces it, but otherwise you've basically got a device that automatically switches into airplane mode when you don't need it. The results are obvious, and impressive. As I write this, a near-dead Nexus 6P has been clinging to life with 2 percent battery for nearly an hour. Then there's App Standby, which automatically flips programs into an inactive state if they haven't been used in a while to further save your battery. If you've ever had to disable some carrier bloatware apps because they were just never used, well, that's basically the same idea here. The only difference is App Standby works automatically. Marshmallow disables apps that haven't been launched lately, aren't running a process or aren't generating notifications. The only potential downside here is that Marshmallow could always deactivate an app you actually wanted to keep, but there are two quick fixes: Open it once in a while, or jump into the Settings to manually restore it (you can even flag it so that it never gets deactivated again). Like it or not, the trusty microSD card slots of yore are disappearing from modern smartphones. If you're lucky enough to have such a slot handy (and haven't completely given yourself over to the cloud), Marshmallow allows you to format the card as internal storage so you can move apps and data that otherwise couldn't have been routed to an external card. Word to the wise: If you do this, don't panic at what you see. Marshmallow combines the storage counts into a single total (a feature called Flex Storage), but still offers a readout of how much room is available on both the internal and external memory. Your phone will also warn you when the SD card you're using is too slow to do much good --you'll want the fastest microSD you can get your hands on, and even a 16GB microSD card with transfer speeds up to 48MB/s prompted a stern warning. The best-case scenario is that you won't notice a difference between the two forms of storage when you start installing apps and moving data, but that's going to hinge largely on the kind of card you're working with. And if all of this sounds like too much effort, you could always just pop in a microSD card and treat it as portable storage -- that way, you can move files between devices without a headache. The coming of Marshmallow also means we've finally got a robust way to backup app data without the need for physical cards. It's called -- what else -- Auto Backup, which occasionally shuttles most of a user's app data into a dedicated corner of Google Drive that can easily be drawn upon again if you're reinstalling an app you've deleted. Oh, and in case you were worried, none of the space taken up by those backups count against your existing Google Drive quota. Overall Verdict Marshmallow might not be the sort of dramatic leap forward we'd expect from Android 6.0, but let's not dwell on the number. What we've got here is an update that takes most of what was great about Lollipop, axed what didn't work (here's looking at you, convoluted volume controls) and added features we didn't even know we wanted. Sure, not everything has been executed perfectly, but the net value of features like Now on Tap, improved permissions, Flex Storage and others more than make up for occasional bits of flakiness. Android has never felt more complete -- now (if you'll pardon the pun) it's on manufacturers to make sure everyone gets a taste soon. |
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