Feeling hungry....Have a Nougat!

Ok...so here I am, after a day's struggle of updating my Nexus 6P with the latest Android OS from Google, aptly called the Android Nougat (N). The OTA updates would have taken much longer and if you know me well, then, I am not one of those patient guys waiting for an update to roll in.

Now, ever since I switched to Android, one thing that I have been loving is Google's strategy to create a portfolio of new apps, features and functionalities which will eventually lead to an un-beatable holistic end-user experience. They just released one new app a week back called Duo and will be coming with another one called Allo. I will cover them in my next post.

So, coming back, here is the first hand experience of using N for a day now. To start with, let me tell you that the folks really worked hard on the notifications bar. You will see too many sweet and subtle changes with the notification bar and preferences pane that can be accessed from the drop-down top menu. The peek-in notifications are many times smarter and you can reply to messages without opening the app.

The other big difference is to give user choices for new themes on the keyboard layout. Something that was missing for so long and Swiftkey was good at.

Google on tap has been enhanced further. It can now help translate too.

The multi-tasking feature has been much spoken and written about but I am not a big fan of that feature (present in Mac OS X for a year now and never used it).

The biggest surprise for me has been a greatly enhanced battery life. I can see hugely visible differences in N vs M (Marshmallow). With more than 110 apps on my Nexus, the result has been amazing. I have not calculated the benefits using a quantitative technique yet but can feel it to be more than 25%.

Lastly, thanks to Google for being open and bold enough to roll out the update on the promised date of Aug 22 instead of dragging it to match with the release of its new line of Nexus phones scheduled for a Sep release.