Google launches Android P Beta with consumer-centric OS updates

Android P, due to be released later this year, would have a new dashboard that tells users how often, when and for how long they have been using every app on the phone.

San Francisco: In a bid to make it easy for users to navigate and use smart ways to access functions on Android devices, Google on Tuesday unveiled a string of updates to its upcoming operating system (OS) Android P and launched its beta version.

At its annual developers conference Google I/O in California, Google claimed that it is creating these new features to help users use phone’s OS “to do more by using it less”.

Android P, due to be released later this year, would have a new dashboard that tells users how often, when and for how long they have been using every app on the phone.

It would also allow them to set limits on themselves like a half-hour of Instagram per day. Once those 30 minutes are up, the colourful icon would become dull.

Android P also includes a new core interface that uses iPhone-like navigation gestures and smarter ways to access functions that are usually buried away inside apps.

The new OS also tweaked how notifications work to stop the phone from bothering users.

Android P would have a dashboard to show information about a user’s phone usage.

It would show how many minutes the phone was used overall per day, how many notifications were received, a pie chart of how long users have used each app on the phone that day and how long per day users’ have used each app on the device — broken down hour by hour.

The update to the OS brings a new Do Not Disturb feature that would disappear notifications when turned on.

Android P would completely revamp the core navigation on the device. It would not have the multitasking button that shows all the apps running in the background. Users can use the “Home” button to navigate the background apps.

These background apps can be accessed by a “Swipe Up”. A second “Swipe Up” would open the app drawer.

The OS also has new updates in volume control and screen rotation. Users can now put the phone on silent mode with one touch and set the screen rotation to landscape or portrait on the spot with a small icon that appears when a spin is detected.